NAMD, recipient of a 2002 Gordon Bell Award and a 2012 Sidney Fernbach 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 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.
Spotlight: Photosynthetic Membrane (June 2014)
Atomic force microscopy (AFM) gives us a low-resolution glimpse of life at the nanometer scale. Now scientists can bring microscopy images to life by combining the microscopy data with atomic-detail structures to re-create the imaged system on the computer. As recently reported, Center scientists constructed an atomic-resolution model of a photosynthetic membrane based on AFM data showing the locations of the many light-harvesting proteins that inhabit the membrane. After using NAMD on petascale computers, like Blue Waters and Titan, to relax the 20-million atom membrane, Center scientists used the model to study the migration of energy among the light-harvesting complexes, as well as the mobility of quinone molecules in the membrane. The photosynthetic membrane patch was found to have a very high (90%) light-harvesting efficiency; further, it was found that the light-harvesting proteins could be considerably less tightly packed in the membrane with minimal loss of efficiency. Read more on our 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
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)
Charm++ Workshop in Urbana (April 11-12, 2018)
"Hands-On" QM/MM Simulation Workshop (April 5-7, 2018)
Enhanced Sampling and Free-Energy Workshop (Sept 25-29, 2017)
"Hands-On" Workshop in Pittsburgh (May 30-June 2, 2017)
NAMD Developer Workshop in Chicago (May 22-23, 2017)
Charm++ Workshop in Urbana (April 17-19, 2017)
"Hands-On" Workshop in Urbana (April 17-21, 2017)
PRACE School on HPC for Life Sciences (April 10-13, 2017)
Older "Hands-On" Workshops
Support
Mailing List Issues for Yahoo.com Addresses
Announcements
NAMD 2.13b2 Release (Oct 2018)
NAMD 2.13b1 Release (Sep 2018)
NAMD 2.13 New Features
One-click NAMD/VMD in the cloud
QM/MM Interface to MOPAC and ORCA
QwikMD GUI Released in VMD 1.9.3
NAMD 2.12 New Features
NAMD 2.12 Release (Dec 2016)
2016 User Survey Report
Previous Announcements
Documentation
Related Codes, Scripts, and Examples
NAMD Wiki (Recent Changes)
Older Documentation
News
Supercomputing HIV-1 Replication
Computational Microscope Gets Subatomic Resolution
Early Science Project on First US Exascale Machine
Opening New Frontiers in the Battle Against HIV/AIDS
HIV Capsid Interacting with Environment
Assembling Life's Molecular Motor
Membrane Channel Made of DNA Origami
NAMD Paper Has 6000 Citations
Antibiotic Resistance Through Efflux Pumps
Membrane Protein Breakthrough
Massive Flu Virus Simulations
Ion Channels in General Anesthesia
How HIV Defeats Cellular Defender
Older News Items
