Klaus J. Schulten
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Swanlund Professor, Department of Physics |
Klaus J. Schulten |
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Abstract: Living cells are made of atoms that are organized in molecules and their
hierarchical assemblies. Most lasting advances in our understanding of the
building blocks of living systems, for example genes, proteins, membranes,
were based on atomic level structures and resulting properties, computing
playing a key role. The question arises if these types of advances can be
extended to explain the self-organization of complete living systems, i.e.,
if an entire cell can be resolved structurally to the atomic level and then
its self-organized behavior deduced from physical principles. This lecture
demonstrates through examples in how far a description of life from atomic
properties and pure physics is already achievable today and may reach
further with advances in microscopy, multi-scale theory, and petascale
computing. Examples to be provided will include the self-assembly of
proteins and lipids, simulation of a virus, swimming of bacteria and,
lastly, the atomic level description of an entire cellular organelle, the
photosynthetic apparatus of purple bacteria. The lecture links present day
achievement in modeling technology and computational discovery with
petascale era prospects to demonstrate that the biosciences are ready for
petascale computing.
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