VMD Lite goes to ComSciCon

The first ComSciCon Atlanta was held last week on the Georgia Tech campus. ComSciCon aims to help other graduate students learn novel ways of communicating science to other scientists and to the public. JC and graduate student Curtis Balusek (pictured) presented on VMD Lite as an example of conveying complex dynamical information about biomolecules in an easy-to-understand and visually appealing manner. See more examples of our outreach efforts here.

A “Y” shaped protein in the eye

 

A joint study led by Raquel Lieberman in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry at GT revealed both the structure and stabilizing mechanisms of the protein myocilin, which is present in the trabecular meshwork of the eye. In particular, simulations demonstrated the role of a key disulfide bond in resisting unfolding. See more about the story here and the paper here.

Workshop success

We just closed out another great Computational Biophysics workshop (the 45th in the series running since 2003!) here in Atlanta. The workshop, sponsored by JC’s former lab in Urbana, covered topics ranging from molecular dynamics to whole cell simulations to even DNA origami! We had about 25 participants from around the southeast (and beyond) spend their week here with us. It was exhausting, but fun, and now we look forward to the next time we will host one again.

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