Episode 15 - Paulo CT Souza: Developing a universal coarse-grained force field, and approaching the science of molecular complexity

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In the fifteenth episode, Paulo Souza and I discuss the challenges inherent in managing a project of such a scope, and the philosophy behind the systematic way in which Martini is continuously improved and reparameterized. Paulo describes how a user-centric approach helps refine and troubleshoot the model through its widescale adoption, and how different inherent limitations of coarse-grained modeling can be addressed to progressively make the force field more predictive and less reliant on user-defined biases. Then, we talk about the interplay between force field development and modern trends in biology, biomedicine and computational sciences - from small molecules to lipid nanoparticles, huge systems such as organelles or viruses, and molecular complexity, understood as going beyond simplified model systems and approaching biologically relevant mixtures and compositions.