The Molecular Sciences Software Institute (MoISSI) has received a five-year renewal grant of $15 million from the National Science Foundation to support software scientists.
MoISSI was originally founded in 2016 with a five-year grant of $19.4 million from the National Science Foundation.
Based in Virginia Tech’s Corporate Research Center, the multi-university organization of software scientists focus on building and designing software tools that help researchers solve issues such as cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease. The institute is also working on creating new energy storage systems to combat climate change.
MoISSI was a finalist for the 2nd Annual ORG Impact Award for their launch of an international open-source COVID-19 website last year that allowed scientists to share computer-aided drug-testing simulations targeting the protein at the center of COVID-19.
T. Daniel Crawford, lead director of the institute says, “The MolSSI is expanding the reach of the computational molecular sciences but also raising the profile of Virginia Tech in the international scientific community.”
With the help of the grant, Crawford says that they plan to extend their educational initiative and infrastructure projects to new applications in biomolecular simulation and materials science.
Around $3 million from the grant will be allocated each year with about 70% of that remaining at Virginia Tech.
Dan Sui, vice president for research and innovation at Virginia Tech says, “The institute has advanced scientific software infrastructure, education, standards, and best practices on an international scale.”
Source: WSLS News 10
Be First to Comment