NAMD - Scalable Molecular Dynamics

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Parallel Programming Laboratory

Bionumerics Research Group

NAMD, recipient of a 2002 Gordon Bell Award, is a parallel molecular dynamics code designed for high-performance simulation of large biomolecular systems. Based on Charm++ parallel objects, NAMD scales to hundreds of processors on high-end parallel platforms and tens of processors on commodity clusters using gigabit ethernet. NAMD uses the popular molecular graphics program VMD for simulation setup and trajectory analysis, but is also file-compatible with AMBER, CHARMM, and X-PLOR. NAMD is distributed free of charge with source code. You can build NAMD yourself or download binaries for a wide variety of platforms. Our tutorials show you how to use NAMD and VMD for biomolecular modeling.

NAMD reference paper: Scalable molecular dynamics with NAMD.

Other Spotlights

Spotlight: Protein-Cholesterol Interactions (Sept 2008)

University of Pennsylvania News Release: Biophysicists at the University of Pennsylvania have used 3,200 computer processors and long-established data on cholesterol’s role in the function of proteins to clarify the mysterious interaction between cholesterol and neurotransmitter receptors. The results provide a new model of behavior for the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor, a well studied protein involved in inflammation, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, schizophrenia, epilepsy, the effect of general anesthetics and addiction to alcohol, nicotine and cocaine.

Moreover, the results apply to closely related receptors that bind serotonin and GABA, which are neurotransmitters directly involved in regulation of mood and sleep.

The findings have broad implications for, among other fields, pharmacology. Drug development in this arena has to take into account the structure and chemical makeup of this receptor, both of which researchers now say were incomplete. Drugs acting on the receptor have been thought to interact with the protein as though it were isolated.

Now, researchers believe that drugs binding to the receptor not only interact with amino acids — the building blocks of the protein receptor — but also cholesterol tucked away within the protein. The shift in thinking transforms the understanding of this receptor in many ways, from shape and structure to its interaction with its environment and its response to neurotransmitters. The new model should spark a reexamination of several decades of research on the receptor's structure and function.

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Spotlight: Protein-Cholesterol Interactions (Sept 2008)

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