Efficient, correct simulation of biological processes in the stochastic pi-calculus

  • Authors:
  • Andrew Phillips;Luca Cardelli

  • Affiliations:
  • Microsoft Research, Cambridge, UK;Microsoft Research, Cambridge, UK

  • Venue:
  • CMSB'07 Proceedings of the 2007 international conference on Computational methods in systems biology
  • Year:
  • 2007

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Abstract

This paper presents a simulation algorithm for the stochastic π-calculus, designed for the efficient simulation of biological systems with large numbers of molecules. The cost of a simulation depends on the number of species, rather than the number of molecules, resulting in a significant gain in efficiency. The algorithm is proved correct with respect to the calculus, and then used as a basis for implementing the latest version of the SPiM stochastic simulator. The algorithm is also suitable for generating graphical animations of simulations, in order to visualise system dynamics.