For those at the Harvard Med School quad (does not include BWH, MGH, etc), you can download free Matlab for use at the office (in the main HMS quad):
Our lab is affiliated with MIT and hence we can purchase Matlab 2009b for $28 (as of Nov 2009). Requires having a "cost center".
Partners Healthcare sell licenses for $325.
Requires affiliation with the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Harvard University (SEAS, see below).
There are two ways to use Comsol through SEAS. The first is to download the software to your office desktop. The other is to use the software mounted on unix-based machines at Harvard through CrimsonGrid.
To download to your desktop at Harvard U or HMS: download from streams.seas.harvard.edu (32-bit machines only), or for all versions (including 64-bit) by downloading the Comsol 3.5a installation DVD image from SEAS's unix servers at /software/downloads/windows/comsol/comsol35a.iso. You can install directly from the DVD image (i.e. you don't have to burn a DVD), for example using free software available from downloads.com.
To access comsol through CrimsonGrid: see below for setup details. Once connected you can upload Matlab and Comsol scripts and run them on the various machines, then process the output and download the results. Requires moderate tech/unix/computing skills.
You must first become an affiliate member of the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Harvard University (SEAS), which Prof. Khademhosseini must approve and sponsor. Resources are limited and a project description is therefore required. More info here:
https://intranet.seas.harvard.edu/CIT (general info)
https://www.seas.harvard.edu/itapps/apply/ (SEAS account application; requires Prof. Khademhosseini's sponsorship and a project description)
With SEAS affiliation, you have access to their unix servers and CrimsonGrid, a Harvard University - HMS group that maintains a unix-based high-performance computing (HPC) facility. The machines are loaded with statistical and computational software.
Warning: setting this up requires moderate UNIX / computer skills. You can access the grid from your laptop using a secure connection, for example, cygwin (note: add SSH to the install). More info here:
http://crimsongrid.harvard.edu/
http://community.crimsongrid.harvard.edu/
http://community.crimsongrid.harvard.edu/getting-started