Computer simulation of biological processes

Arieh Warshel—professor of chemistry and biochemistry in the USC College of Letters, Arts & Sciences—is among the world's leaders in computational biophysics. He received the 1993 Annual Award of the International Society of Quantum Biology and Pharmacology, was elected a fellow of the Biophysical Society in 2001 and was awarded the 2003 Tolman Medal, the top award given by the Southern California Section of the American Chemical Society.

Warshel and his research group have introduced several of the most effective models for computer simulations of a biological molecule. They have pioneered molecular dynamics simulations of biological systems in studies of vision, photosynthesis, protein folding and electrostatic energies in proteins, and chemical reactions in enzymes and solutions. Warshel and his research team have been responsible for the development of the emerging field of computational enzymology.

In collaboration with others, Warshel developed the Consistent Force Field (CFF) method and corresponding computer programs that are the basis of most current molecular modeling program packages, including CHARMM, AMBER and GROMOS. He and his research team also developed the hybrid quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) method, which has become one of the most important research tools in computational chemistry.

As the result of Warshel's advances in the computer simulation of biological processes, questions about the functions of particular biological molecular structures can now be formulated as well-defined problems in computational chemistry—ranging from enzyme design to ion flow in ion channels to the action of molecular motors. Such simulations enable researchers to arrive at quantitative conclusions about such processes and provide the basis for fundamental advances in biophysics. These advances, in turn, may one day lead to practical advances in medicine.