The Molecular Sciences Software Institute (MolSSI), based in Virginia Tech’s Corporate Research Center, has received a $15 million renewal grant from the National Science Foundation.
The five-year grant is a massive boost of support for the multi-university organization of software scientists dedicated to designing and building new, powerful software tools that can help researchers of all stripes tackle wide-ranging, complex, data-heavy issues, such as cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s disease, as well as creating new energy storage systems that can help stem climate change. It also led the creation of an international open-source website that allowed biomolecular scientists from around the world to share computer-aided drug-testing simulations targeting the protein at the center of COVID-19.
MolSSI was founded in 2016 with a five-year, $19.4 million, also from the National Science Foundation. Its members include Iowa State University, Rice University, Rutgers University, the University of Michigan, State University of New York at Stony Brook, the University of Southern California, and the University of California, Berkeley. The creation of the institute was in-part inspired by the White House’s 2015 National Strategic Computing Initiative.