Adaptive ensemble simulations of biomolecules

TL;DR

Adaptive ensemble simulations leverage advanced algorithms and software infrastructure to improve biomolecular process modeling, offering greater flexibility and efficiency in computational biology research.

Contribution

The paper reviews current adaptive ensemble algorithms, discusses implementation challenges, and introduces an API to facilitate development of adaptive simulation methods.

Findings

Review of existing adaptive ensemble algorithms

Identification of implementation challenges

Proposal of an API to simplify adaptive simulation development

Abstract

Recent advances in both theory and computational power have created opportunities to simulate biomolecular processes more efficiently using adaptive ensemble simulations. Ensemble simulations are now widely used to compute a number of individual simulation trajectories and analyze statistics across them. Adaptive ensemble simulations offer a further level of sophistication and flexibility by enabling high-level algorithms to control simulations based on intermediate results. We review some of the adaptive ensemble algorithms and software infrastructure currently in use and outline where the complexities of implementing adaptive simulation have limited algorithmic innovation to date. We describe an adaptive ensemble API to overcome some of these barriers and more flexibly and simply express adaptive simulation algorithms to help realize the power of this type of simulation.