van der Spoel lab

"…Everything that living things do can be understood in terms of the jiggling and wiggling of atoms…" is a fame quote by Richard Feynman. Although it is easier said than done my group is working hard to make it possible to predict the " jiggling and wiggling of atoms" using computer simulation based on accurate physical models. With these and other models we study biological systems, e.g. virus particles as well as partial virus capsids in order to understand virus infection and budding at the molecular level. Finally we are studying how pollutants interfere with biological receptors and DNA.

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Research projects

"…Everything that living things do can be understood in terms of the jiggling and wiggling of atoms…" is a fame quote by Richard Feynman. It is easier said than done however. My group is working hard to make this happen. The long-term goals of my research group are therefore

  1. to create physical models (force fields) of compounds and molecules that faithfully reproduce the (free) energies of these compounds,
  2. to implement tools in the GROMACS (http://www.gromacs.org) package for simulations using these models,
  3. to develop and implement tools for the analysis of structural, dynamic and energetic properties of molecular systems and
  4. to perform systematic benchmarks of the predictive power of existing force fields and quantum-chemistry theories with the purpose of generating reference systems for the development of better force fields.

Simultaneously we are using traditional as well as more modern force fields to study a range of systems:

  1. Simulations of entire virus particles as well as partial virus capsids are performed to study virus infection and budding.
  2. Simulations of RNA in solution and in virus particles.
  3. Systematic docking and binding calculations are done to understand how pollutants interfere with biological receptors and DNA.

Welcome to our external homepage

Group members

Group members: David Van der Spoel

People

David van der Spoel, Ph. D., Professor

Marie-Madeleine Walz, Ph.D., Postdoc

Alfred Andersson, Ph.D. student

Kristian Kriz, Ph.D., Postdoc

Paul J. van Maaren, M.Sc. Visiting scientist

Contact

  • www.folding.bmc.uu.se

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