9:15 AM-10:00 AM
New Hampshire Ballroom
Chair: Tamar Schlick, New York University, USA
Earlier generations of computers were inadequate for the challenges of biological complexity. The development of massively parallel computers with teraflop speed and the mastering of the associated programming problems will open up vast, yet uncharted, research opportunities in molecular biology. Increased size of systems simulated permits study at atomic level detail of protein-protein and protein-nucleic acid recognition and assembly, even of the function and mechanism of integral functional units of cells. The gap between computationally feasible and functionally relevant time scales can be bridged and interactive modeling becomes feasible. Sampling of statistically significant sets of dynamical events and of chemical species will be possible. The speaker will discuss the technical and algorithmic needs for effective utilization of teraflop resources, and conceptual and mathematical problems connected with large system, long time scale modeling and sampling.
Klaus Schulten