International Workshop on Coarse-Grained Biomolecular Modeling

Atomistic simulations of biomolecular systems have been used for decades to complement experiments. However, even with the rapid increase in the available computational power, atomistic simulations are still strictly limited to the nanoscale regime. This limitation prohibits studies of many important processes involving biological macromolecules, such as phase behaviour in lipid bilayers, vesicle fusion, and dynamics of proteins and their aggregates. Moreover, a direct comparison of atomistic simulations to experiments is often hampered due to the inherent limitations in resolution with the experimental methods used.

A powerful solution to the time and length scale problem in molecular simulation is to coarse-grain (CG) the atomistic system studied to one with a lower spatial resolution. Consequently, interactions between single atoms are replaced by effective interactions between the CG units. This process dramatically decreases the degrees of freedom of the model, resulting in a speed-up of the simulations by several orders of magnitude.

The purpose of this workshop is to introduce the participants to different state-of-the-art methods in CG modeling of biomolecular systems. The workshop features a series of plenary lectures by internationally renowned experts in the field. Invited and contributed research talks and a poster session will further provide the participants with a view on the present-day applications of CG and multi-scale methods. Practical sessions on the featured CG methods will provide the participants with hands-on experience on their application.