Abstract
The E-CELL project was launched in 1996 at Keio University in order to model and simulate various cellular processes with the ultimate goal of simulating the cell as a whole. The first version of the E-CELL simulation system, which is a generic software package for cell modeling, was completed in 1997. The E-CELL system enables us to model not only metabolic pathways but also other higher-order cellular processes such as protein synthesis and membrane transport within the same framework. These various processes can then be integrated into a single simulation model.
Using the E-CELL system, we have successfully constructed a virtual cell with 127 genes sufficient for “self-support”. The gene set was selected from the genome of Mycoplasma genitalium the organism having the smallest known genome. The set includes genes for transcription, translation, the glycolysis pathway for energy production, membrane transport, and the phospholipid biosynthesis pathway for membrane structure.
The E-CELL system has been made available for beta testing from our website (http: //www.e-cell.org).
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Masaru Tomita, Ph.D: He is a Professor of the Laborator for Bioinformatics of the Department of Environmental Information and an Adjunct Professor of the School of Medicine at Keio University. He obtained his B.S in Mathematics from Keio University, M.S and Ph.D in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon Universityin in 1981, 1983 and 1985 respectively From 1985 to 1994, he had been a Research Associate, Assistant Professor, Associate Professor of the Department of Computer Science, as well as a Associate Director of the Center for Machine Translation at Carnegie Mellon University. He received Presidential Young Investigators Award (National Science Foundation) in 1988 and another Ph.D in 1998 in Molecular Biology from Keio University. His current research interests include Bioinformatics, Genome Informatics, Theoretical Molecular Biology and Natural Language.
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Tomita, M., Hashimoto, K., Takahashi, K. et al. The E-CELL project: Towards integrative simulation of cellular processes. New Gener Comput 18, 1–12 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03037563
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03037563