About

Overview: cellPACK is a biological software tool designed to assemble large scale models from molecular building-blocks. cellPACK integrates structural biology and systems biology data with packing algorithms (figure 1) to assemble comprehensive 3D models of cell-scale structures in molecular detail (figure 2).

Why: To combine data from all branches of biology into comprehensive mesoscale models for hypothesis generation, experimentation, communication, & education.

Who: Researchers, scientific illustrators, animators, educators, students, curious minds.

Try: By January 19, 2015 the Use tab will allow you to explore data that goes into several available recipes (HIV, Blood Plasma, Synaptic Vesicles, etc.). These temporary View pages will also display background information, images, and 3D models output by cellPACK. The deeper functionalities of cellPACK are currently a bit trickier to use and require some effort to install and learn.  We are working on a user-friendly online and mobile interfaces for constructing recipes and for viewing, analyzing, and building models. Until that is available, you can view models in UCSF Chimera, or the intrepid can use cellPACK from within 3D animation software via our free cellPACK uPy interface plugins– details here.

Where: The cellPACK system is and open-source project with core developers in Graham Johnson's Mesoscope Lab at the University of California, San Francisco (QB3@UCSF) and in Art Olson's Molecular Graphics Lab at The Scripps Research Institute. Graham and Ludovic Autin are the primary core programmers who work with a growing list of contributors.