Multiscale Simulation Methods for Living Systems: Applications to Biomolecules and Cells

Dear Colleagues,

We are delighted to announce that we will be launching a new Special Issue in the MDPI journal Life on the topic of “Multiscale Simulation Methods for Living Systems: Applications to Biomolecules and Cells”. Many researchers have been simulating different levels of living systems from biomolecules to cells, hoping to understand the biological implications of a whole cell or cells. Molecular dynamics simulation is a key tool, but its applicability is rather limited to small molecular systems or short time scales, where biologically significant events might not take place. Various multiscale methods thus come into play: coarse-graining used in polymer physics or soft-matter physics is popular to economically treat large molecular systems, path-sampling techniques are known to deal with rare event problems of long-time scale dynamics, and recently, machine learning or AI (artificial intelligence) has often been employed to design better force fields or to enhance the conformational/path sampling using AI-derived collective variables. However, there is room for further development, which we want to cover in this Special Issue. Authors are invited to describe their development of multiscale methods for treating living systems. The topic will include (a) multiscale simulations of biomolecules (atomistic models or coarse-grained models of proteins, DNA, RNA, or their complexes), (b) mathematical or computational approaches for cellular dynamics simulations using different levels of governing equations, and (c) dynamic or kinetic properties of biomolecules or cells using novel techniques (path sampling, Markov state model, chemical reaction networks, soft-matter/active-matter physics approaches, machine learning, etc.).

This Special Issue is now open for submissions. Prospective authors should first send a short abstract or tentative title to the Editorial Office. If the editors deem the topic to be appropriate for inclusion in the Special Issues, the author will be encouraged to submit a full manuscript.

Dr. Hiroshi Fujisaki
Dr. Yuichi Togashi
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Life is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.