Simulating Biomolecules on the Petascale Supercomputers

Abstract

Computing continues to make a signicant impact on biology. A variety of computational techniques have allowed rapid developments in design of experiments as well as collection, storage and analysis of experimental data. These developments have and are leading to novel insights into a variety of biological processes. The strength of computing in biology, however, comes from the ability to investigate those aspects of biological processes that are either dicult or are beyond the reach of experimental techniques. Particularly in the last 3 decades, availability of increasing computing power has had a signicant impact on the fundamental understanding of the biomolecules at the molecular level. Molecular biochemists and biophysicists, through theoretical multi-scale modeling and computational simulations, have been able to obtain atomistic level understanding of biomolecular structure, dynamics, folding and function. The protein folding problem, in particular, has attracted considerable interest from a variety of researchers and simulation scientists.