Sérgio F. Sousa presented a talk entitled “Application of Biomolecular Simulations for Aptamer Design for Biomedical Applications ” in the “Multiscale simulations of DNA from electrons to nucleosomes: 22 years of the Ascona B-DNA Consortium”, which took place in Ascona, Switzerland April 16-21st 2023.
This event joined together around 80 participants working on simulations of nucleic acids, celebrating 22 years from the ABC initiative. The Ascona B-DNA Consortium (ABC) initiative originated in 2001 at a conference in Monte Verità that involved a number of those working on methods and applications of Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations to nucleic acids, and a second Ascona meeting was held in 2006. The original objective of the ABC project was to produce a database of state-of-the-art MD on DNA in which all 136 independent tetranucleotide steps were represented, developing standards and protocols for the simulation of DNA, and obtaining information for the comprehensive study and improved understanding of base-pair sequence effects on structure and dynamics. The ABC has been active during the last 20 years, involving more than 40 experts from Europe, Asia and America and dozens of collaborators focused on the structure of B-DNA from electrons and up to nucleosomes.