Every living cell contains its own bustling microcosm, with thousands of components responsible for energy production, protein building, gene transcription and more.
Scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have built a 3D simulation that replicates these physical and chemical characteristics at a particle scale - creating a fully dynamic model that mimics the behavior of a living cell.
Published in the journal Cell, the project simulates a living minimal cell, which contains a pared-down set of genes essential for the cell's survival, function and replication. The model uses NVIDIA GPUs to simulate 7,000 genetic information processes over a 20-minute span of the cell cycle - making it what the scientists believe is the longest, most complex cell simulation to date.
Minimal cells are simpler than naturally occurring ones, making them easier to recreate digitally.
Even a minimal cell requires 2 billion atoms, said Zaida Luthey-Schulten, chemistry professor and co-director of the university's Center for the Physics of Living Cells. You cannot do a 3D model like this in a realistic human time scale without GPUs.
Once further tested and refined, whole-cell models can help scientists predict how changes to the conditions or genomes of real-world cells will affect their function. But even at this stage, minimal cell simulation can give scientists insight into the physical and chemical processes that form the foundation of living cells.
What we found is that fundamental behaviors emerge from the simulated cell - not because we programmed them in, but because we had the kinetic parameters and lipid mechanisms correct in our model, she said.
Lattice Microbes, the GPU-accelerated software co-developed by Luthey-Schulten and used to simulate the 3D minimal cell, is available on the NVIDIA NGC software hub.
Minimal Cell With Maximum Realism To build the living cell model, the Illinois researchers simulated one of the simplest living cells, a parasitic bacteria called mycoplasma. They based the model on a trimmed-down version of a mycoplasma cell synthesized by scientists at J. Craig Venter Institute in La Jolla, Calif., which had just under 500 genes to keep it viable.
For comparison, a single E. coli cell has around 5,000 genes. A human cell has more than 20,000.
Luthy-Schulten's team then used known properties of the mycoplasma's inner workings, including amino acids, nucleotides, lipids and small molecule metabolites to build out the model with DNA, RNA, proteins and membranes.
We had enough of the reactions that we could reproduce everything known, she said.
Using Lattice Microbes software on NVIDIA Tensor Core GPUs, the researchers ran a 20-minute 3D simulation of the cell's life cycle, before it starts to substantially expand or replicate its DNA. The model showed that the cell dedicated most of its energy to transporting molecules across the cell membrane, which fits its profile as a parasitic cell.
If you did these calculations serially, or at an all-atom level, it'd take years, said graduate student and paper lead author Zane Thornburg. But because they're all independent processes, we could bring parallelization into the code and make use of GPUs.
Thornburg is working on another GPU-accelerated project to simulate growth and cell division in 3D. The team has recently adopted NVIDIA DGX systems and RTX A5000 GPUs to further accelerate its work, and found that using A5000 GPUs sped up the benchmark simulation time by 40 percent compared to a development workstation with a previous-generation NVIDIA GPU.
Learn more about researchers using NVIDIA GPUs to accelerate science breakthroughs by registering free for NVIDIA GTC, running online March 21-24.
Main image is a snapshot from the 20-minute 3D spatial simulation, showing yellow and purple ribosomes, red and blue degradasomes, and smaller spheres representing DNA polymers and proteins.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
02/05/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
01/05/2026
January 5 2026, 18:30 (PST) NBCUniversal's Peacock to Be First Streamer to ...
21/04/2026
Cloud-based production isnt going anywhere, and BitFire is doubling down by prov...
21/04/2026
The topic of artificial intelligence has a stranglehold on the sports-video-prod...
21/04/2026
5G is still a hot topic in live event production, and this workflow continues to...
21/04/2026
At the 2026 NAB Show, Ed McGivern, GM and President of Appear US, discusses the ...
21/04/2026
Studio Network Solutions (SNS) has announced an on-premise AI suite designed for...
21/04/2026
Suite Studios has integrated its file-streaming technology into the newly announced Frame.io Drive, a desktop application from Adobe company Frame.io. The colla...
21/04/2026
Net Insight has integrated InSync Technology's FrameFormer into the Nimbra E...
21/04/2026
Fox Sports has selected Appear as a technology partner to support the next phase...
21/04/2026
Diversified has appointed Tyler Affolter as Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) to lead the company's commercial organisation. The appointment follows the firm'...
21/04/2026
Layercake has formalised the integration of Bitmovin's video streaming infra...
21/04/2026
The International Judo Federation (IJF) has extended its distribution partnershi...
21/04/2026
Glookast has launched the Cinnafilm Tachyon plugin for its Media Producer and Me...
21/04/2026
Eutelsat has entered into an agreement with Cadena Tres, a division of Grupo Ima...
21/04/2026
Dolby Laboratories and TV Azteca have partnered to introduce Dolby Atmos immersive audio to free-to-air television broadcasts. The implementation utilises the A...
21/04/2026
FOX Entertainment partnered with Verizon to overcome significant production hurd...
21/04/2026
Osprey Video has announced its technology showcase for the NAB Show 2026, highli...
21/04/2026
Riedel Communications (Booth C4908) introduced a range of new solutions at NAB S...
21/04/2026
The NAB Show is in full swing, and the SVG and SVG Europe editorial teams are chasing down the hottest stories from all over the Las Vegas Convention Center. He...
21/04/2026
Blackmagic Design has announced the URSA Cine Immersive 100G, an immersive cinem...
21/04/2026
Clark Wire & Cable is continuing its evolution from cable supplier to full-scale solutions partner for broadcast and live production. At the 2026 NAB Show, we s...
21/04/2026
Rashad Frett attends the 2025 Sundance Film Festival premiere of Ricky at Eccles Theatre on January 24, 2025, in Park City, UT. (Photo by George Pimentel/Shut...
21/04/2026
Five years ago, Spotify arrived in Pakistan, opening a new chapter in the country's music scene. Since then, local listeners have explored across genres, ge...
21/04/2026
Since its launch in 2020, RADAR has been our program for spotlighting emerging artists around the world. This year marks the sixth edition of RADAR Spain, our o...
21/04/2026
Offers compact wireless solution for pedalboards
Taiwanese audio brand Cloudvocal have announced the availability of a new pedalboard-friendly wireless syst...
21/04/2026
Latest hybrid sampling/synthesis instrument arrives
Arturia's Augmented series offerings rely on a mixture of sampling and synthesis, allowing users to ...
21/04/2026
Rohde & Schwarz to host Power Electronics Online Conference From Design to Vali...
21/04/2026
MAS and Lockheed Martin partner to establish an F-35 depot in Canada, enabling in-country sustainment and creating high-skilled aerospace jobs....
21/04/2026
Advertising strategies shift as competition grows for a large, active and qualit...
21/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
21/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
21/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
21/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
21/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
21/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
21/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
21/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
21/04/2026
Layercake Deepens Bitmovin Integration to Power End-to-End Media Orchestration w...
21/04/2026
Cobalt Digital Announces Launch of blueCORE at NAB Show 2026: Compact Powerhouse...
21/04/2026
On-Premise AI Suite from Studio Network Solutions Debuts at NAB Show 2026
Melanie Ciotti April 21, 2026
0 Comments
Unlimited processing, no cloud depe...
21/04/2026
London, 21 April 2026 IBC today announced the appointment of Tim Banham as its first Chief Commercial Officer (CCO), a newly created role that reflects the or...
21/04/2026
Motion Design Tools - April 2026
Roland Kahlenberg April 21, 2026
0 Comments
Within 2 days, Maxon and Canva announced pro-level motion design apps - A...
21/04/2026
Chaos and Zero Density to Showcase Real-Time Ray Tracing for Virtual Studios and...
21/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
Every living cell contains its own bustling microcosm, with thousands of components responsible for energy production, protein building, gene transcription and more.
