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BioSimulators: a central registry of simulation engines and services for recommending specific tools.

Nucleic acids research

Authors: Bilal Shaikh, Lucian P Smith, Dan Vasilescu, Gnaneswara Marupilla, Michael Wilson, Eran Agmon, Henry Agnew, Steven S Andrews, Azraf Anwar, Moritz E Beber, Frank T Bergmann, David Brooks, Lutz Brusch, Laurence Calzone, Kiri Choi, Joshua Cooper, John Detloff, Brian Drawert, Michel Dumontier, G Bard Ermentrout, James R Faeder, Andrew P Freiburger, Fabian Fröhlich, Akira Funahashi, Alan Garny, John H Gennari, Padraig Gleeson, Anne Goelzer, Zachary Haiman, Jan Hasenauer, Joseph L Hellerstein, Henning Hermjakob, Stefan Hoops, Jon C Ison, Diego Jahn, Henry V Jakubowski, Ryann Jordan, Matúš Kalaš, Matthias König, Wolfram Liebermeister, Rahuman S Malik Sheriff, Synchon Mandal, Robert McDougal, J Kyle Medley, Pedro Mendes, Robert Müller, Chris J Myers, Aurelien Naldi, Tung V N Nguyen, David P Nickerson, Brett G Olivier, Drashti Patoliya, Loïc Paulevé, Linda R Petzold, Ankita Priya, Anand K Rampadarath, Johann M Rohwer, Ali S Saglam, Dilawar Singh, Ankur Sinha, Jacky Snoep, Hugh Sorby, Ryan Spangler, Jörn Starruß, Payton J Thomas, David van Niekerk, Daniel Weindl, Fengkai Zhang, Anna Zhukova, Arthur P Goldberg, James C Schaff, Michael L Blinov, Herbert M Sauro, Ion I Moraru, Jonathan R Karr

Computational models have great potential to accelerate bioscience, bioengineering, and medicine. However, it remains challenging to reproduce and reuse simulations, in part, because the numerous formats and methods for simulating various subsystems and scales remain siloed by different software tools. For example, each tool must be executed through a distinct interface. To help investigators find and use simulation tools, we developed BioSimulators (https://biosimulators.org), a central registry of the capabilities of simulation tools and consistent Python, command-line and containerized interfaces to each version of each tool. The foundation of BioSimulators is standards, such as CellML, SBML, SED-ML and the COMBINE archive format, and validation tools for simulation projects and simulation tools that ensure these standards are used consistently. To help modelers find tools for particular projects, we have also used the registry to develop recommendation services. We anticipate that BioSimulators will help modelers exchange, reproduce, and combine simulations.

© The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.

PMID: 35524558

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