NAMD, recipient of a 2002 Gordon Bell Award, a 2012 Sidney Fernbach Award, and a 2020 Gordon Bell Prize, 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 cores for typical simulations and beyond 500,000 cores for the largest simulations. 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.
Breaking News
| 
      NAMD 3.0.2 Release - 
      Point release 3.0.2 fixes bugs in the Colvars module that affect not only NAMD 3.0 and 3.0.1, but also earlier NAMD 2 versions. See announce.txt for details regarding correctness issues in: eigenvector, orientationAngle, orientation, both coordNum and selfCoordNum with pairlist, and distanceZ with dynamic axis. For more information about the bugs in Colvars, please see Colvars Bugfix Announcement. We encourage all NAMD users to upgrade to version 3.0.2.  | 
  
| NAMD 3.0 New Features - webpage is posted | 
| NAMD GPU-resident benchmarks - results and data sets with GPU-optimized configuration posted | 
| NAMD 2.15 ALPHA Release providing GPU-offload support for Intel GPU Max Series. This source code release available on the download page includes SYCL code that can be built using the Intel oneAPI toolkits. Following the download link reveals a page with detailed build instructions. | 
Spotlight: Antibiotic Action on the Ribosome (Oct 2014)
         
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 made with VMD
The ribosome, one of the ubiquitous molecular machines in living cells, is responsible for the critical task of translating the genetic code into functional proteins (See also Managing the Protein Assembly Line). The bacterial ribosome is the target of over 50% antibiotic drugs, for example, the clinically important macrolide family, including the widely-prescribed erythromycin (ERY) which is on the WHO essential medicines list. The antibiotic action of macrolide drugs has been known for over 50 years, however, the molecular mechanisms underlying the effects of these drugs are still unknown. It was previously believed that the antibiotic action by macrolide drugs has to be assisted by the presence of a nascent protein inside the ribosome. However, in a recent study, computational investigations jointly with biochemical experiments have revealed that the macrolide drugs can take an antibiotic action by altering the structure of the bacterial ribosome before translation of nascent protein really begins. Please see more highlights on translational control of the ribosome: Born to Control, Shutting Down the Protein Factory. Read more on our Ribosome website.
Overview
        Why NAMD? (in pictures)
  
 How to Cite NAMD
  
 Features and Capabilities
  
 Performance Benchmarks
  
 Publications and
        Citations
  
 Credits and Development Team
Availability
       Read the License
  
 Download NAMD Binaries
    (also VMD)
  
 Build from Source Code
  - Git access now available
  
 Run at NCSA, SDSC, NICS, or Texas
  
  
Training
 NAMD Developer Workshop in Urbana (August 19-20, 2019)
       
  
 PRACE School on HPC for Life Sciences (June 10-13, 2019)
  
 "Hands-On" Workshop in Pittsburgh (May 13-17, 2019)
  
 Charm++ Workshop in Urbana (May 1-2, 2019)
  
 Enhanced Sampling and Free-Energy Workshop (Sept 10-14, 2018)
        
  
 NAMD Developer Workshop in Urbana (June 11-12, 2018)
        
  
 "Hands-On" Workshop in Pittsburgh (May 21-25, 2018)
        
  
 "Hands-On" QM/MM Simulation Workshop (April 5-7, 2018)
  
 Older "Hands-On" Workshops
Support
Mailing List Issues for Yahoo.com Addresses
Announcements
NAMD 3.0.2 Release (Aug 2025)
  NAMD 3.0.1 Release (Oct 2024)
NAMD 3.0 Release (Jun 2024)
NAMD 3.0 New Features (Feb 2024)
NAMD 2.14 Bug Fixes (Apr 2022)
NAMD 2.14 Release (Aug 2020)
NAMD 2.14 New Features
One-click NAMD/VMD in the cloud
QM/MM Interface to MOPAC and ORCA
QwikMD GUI Released in VMD 1.9.3
Previous Announcements
Documentation
        Related Codes, Scripts, and Examples
  
 NAMD Wiki (Recent Changes)
  
 Older Documentation
News
  Sparing healthy microbes while using a novel antibiotic
       
  
 AMBER force field use in NAMD for large scale simulation
       
  
 NAMD GPU-resident benchmarks available
       
  
 NAMD and VMD share in COVID-19 Gordon Bell Special Prize
  
 NAMD reference paper published online
  
 Coronavirus Simulations by U. Delaware Team
  
 Coronavirus Simulations on Frontera Supercomputer
  
 Breakthrough Flu Simulations
  
 Oak Ridge Exascale Readiness Program
  
 Prepping for Next-Generation Cray at NERSC
  
 Supercomputing HIV-1 Replication
  
 How GPUs help in the fight against staph infections
  
 Computational Microscope Gets Subatomic Resolution
  
 Opening New Frontiers in the Battle Against HIV/AIDS
  
HIV Capsid Interacting with Environment
  
 Assembling Life's Molecular Motor
  
 Older News Items



