Simulating Biomolecules: Festschrift to commemorate the 60th birthday of Charles L. Brooks III

At the Spring ACS meeting in San Diego in March 2016, Jana Shen, Hung Nguyen, and Michael Feig organized a symposium on “From Dynamics to Function and Back Again: Adventures in Simulating Biomolecules”, celebrating the 60 birthday of Professor Charles L. Brooks III and bringing together many of Charlie’s collaborators, friends, and alumni. This issue of the Journal of Computational Chemistry results from the peerreviewed contributions from many of the participants at the symposium. Charlie and his research group have made many important innovations in the field of biomolecular simulation, including, but not limited to, new sampling techniques, implicit solvation models and coarse-grained and multi-scale modelling. They and other research groups in the field have applied these innovative techniques to challenging biological problems, such as protein folding, protein-ligand binding, macromolecular machines, virus capsid assembly, and studies of membrane and associated protein structure and dynamics. This issue exemplifies this diverse range of research interests. Charlie’s impact on the field has been seminal, reflected by, for example, the Thomas Reuters’ designation as one of the “top 100 chemists of the decade, 2000–2010”. Charlie has received numerous awards and accolades over his career. In the last five years alone, he has been elected Fellow of the Figure 1. Charlie Brooks at the center of the group picture of the attendees of the “From Dynamics to Function and Back Again: Adventures in Simulating Biomolecules” symposium, ACS National Meeting, San Diego, March 2016.