Reviving a prolific cooperation

Tuesday 26 April 2016

Molecular Modelling is a modern tool that generates useful knowledge for materials or drug development by understanding the underlying microscopic mechanisms. Prof. Robert J. Woods, visiting from the University of Georgia (USA), gave a research talk on one specific example for this on Friday, 22 April 2016.

kirschner_woods_reith_sta_img_3858_teasercut.jpg (DE)

The topic of his talk was a computational chemistry perspective for "Understanding Flu Binding to Human Tissue". In the future his ideas might lead to the creation of an anti-infective for flu prophylaxis. The talk was hosted by Prof. Dirk Reith and Dr Karl Kirschner.

From 2000 to 2004, Dr Kirschner was a postdoc in Prof. Woods group, and collaborated in the creation of a very accurate atomistic description of biomolecules (the Glycam06 force field for modelling carbohydrates[1]), which is widely used in the scientific community. Drs Woods and Kirschner have coauthored four research articles and one book chapter, which collectively have over 960 citations. With Wood’s visit the foundation for future collaboration is reestablished and could well be extended with the addition of Prof. Reith and his research group.

The talk was attended by Prof. Reith's research group, students, and researchers from Fraunhofer SCAI. During his visit here, Prof. Woods also met with several members of the Institute of Visual Computing and, being a car aficionado, was given a tour of H-BRS's race car facilities.

[1] Kirschner, K. N.; Yongye, A. B.; Tschampel, S. M.; Gonzalez-Outeirino, J.; Daniels, C. R.; Foley, B. L. & Woods, R. J. GLYCAM06: A Generalizable Biomolecular Force Field. Carbohydrates Journal of Computational Chemistry, 2008, 29, 622-655