Milind Bhandarkar 
, Gila Budescu 
, William F. Humphrey 
,
Jesus A. Izaguirre , Sergei Izrailev 
, Laxmikant V. Kale ,
Dorina Kosztin 
, Ferenc Molnar , James C. Phillips ,
and Klaus Schulten
Department of Computer Science, Beckman Institute,
and Departments of 
Physics and 
Chemistry
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
Urbana, IL 61801
Advanced Computing Lab
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos, NM 87545
email: kschulte@ks.uiuc.edu
Biology, Network, Software Engineering, Interactive Simulation, Collaboratory
Modern computational structural biology requires scientists to employ a wide range of tools and techniques to solve complex problems while keeping accurate records of research activities. Additional complications are introduced by the need to effectively engage in interdisciplinary collaborations with geographically dispersed colleagues. The software BioCoRE, a collaborative research environment for molecular modeling and simulations, addresses these challenges. Initial design work has led to a web-based architecture focused on four primary interface paradigms: a workbench allows diverse computational tools to be applied to the problem at hand in a consistent manner, a notebook automates recording of research activities, electronic conferences held with collaborators can be saved and replayed, and multi-author documents can be prepared in a cross-platform revision control system. When complete, it is expected that the BioCoRE meta-application will drastically reduce the effort and expense presently associated with structural biology distance collaborations.