The biological membrane is composed of a complex mixture of lipids. The fluid nature of the membrane coupled with the current resolution limitations of experimental techniques still hinders a detailed molecular understanding of membranes and membrane embedded proteins.
Molecular dynamics simulations of a complex mixture of lipids are an ideal complement to the available experimental data. Unfortunately, the major difficulty in setting up such simulations has been the limited number of topology and template files available.
I initiated and took part in the implementation of LipidBuilder, a framework that facilitated the creation of these files. As a result, only a few steps are now needed to create, store and share lipids. A curated collection of lipids allows for the assembly of membranes specific to several different organisms. A standalone version of LipidBuilder was integrated into VMD, a widely used molecular viewer.
LipidBuilder