While very impressive, I'm not sure about their goal:<p>> Modeling genes at the atomistic level is the first step toward creating a complete explanation of how DNA expands and contracts, which controls genetic on/off switching.<p>That does not work in isolation like this: McGuffee and Elcock did some fantastic work in 2010 where they showed that protein stability is quite dependent on that the cytoplasm is insanely densely packed. The same is also true for the nucleus of a cell. You can't make any serious claims of a bottom-up explanation of gene regulation and expression unless you can model the entire nucleus, which is out of our reach for years and years to come.<p>And that is before I start on whether this is an actually useful way to research gene expression in general, which I'd very much argue against.