The Next 50 Years: A Model of Life on the Atomic Scale

April 28, 2020 • by Marc Airhart

Can we simulate life — in all its messy complexity and at the scale of each individual atom — in a computer?

Illustration of a biological cell

Even the most powerful supercomputers today can only simulate a tiny portion of a single living cell for a few nanoseconds. Carlos Baiz is a biochemist at the University of Texas at Austin who says it might someday be possible to simulate an entire living cell for hours or longer. But he says there are two big catches. Baiz shares his vision for the future in this latest episode of our miniseries, The Next 50 Years.

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