Courtesy of B. Gallagher and Thierry Emonet
Agent-based simulation of 1,080 cells in a 3D medium with a vertical aspartate gradient, shown at 54, 150, and 400 seconds after simulation start. 540 cells are sensitive to aspartate (green) and 540 cells are not sensitive (red). To illustrate the complicated trajectory of cells, the trace of two typical cells is shown.
A new, single-cell computational model developed by scientists at the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory borrows a technique used in the social sciences to digitally study how random molecular events within a cell influence its behavior. In a proof-of-principle study, Thierry Emonet and colleagues showed that their program, AgentCell, accurately simulated chemotaxis in 1,000 individual
The authors plan to use the model to study interactions between cells. "With AgentCell, you can go from the molecular events inside a single cell, to the behavior of that ...
