Dr. Alex de Vries is a Lecturer/Post-doc at Molecular Dynamics Group at University of Groningen. He works with a “Computational Microscope” that is able to visualize the motions of the molecules of life and their interactions with a model for biomolecular simulations – the so-called Martini model – using High Performance Computing. The group has contributed to a better understanding of how lipid membranes function, and how small molecules such as alcohols and sugars influence this function. They also study how membrane proteins move and assemble within the membrane, and have recently included DNA in our models. They see this simulation model as an aid to interpret results from experiments we perform in the lab given that the model provides detail well beyond the resolution of these experiments.