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In silico


In silico (literally Latin for "in silicon", alluding to the mass use of silicon for semiconductor computer chips) is an expression used to mean "performed on computer or via computer simulation." The phrase was coined in 1989 as an allusion to the Latin phrases in vivo, in vitro, and in situ, which are commonly used in biology (see also systems biology) and refer to experiments done in living organisms, outside of living organisms, and where they are found in nature, respectively.

In silico study in medicine is thought to have the potential to speed the rate of discovery while reducing the need for expensive lab work and clinical trials. One way to achieve this is by producing and screening drug candidates more effectively. In 2010, for example, using the protein docking algorithm EADock (see Protein-ligand docking), researchers found potential inhibitors to an enzyme associated with cancer activity in silico. Fifty percent of the molecules were later shown to be active inhibitors in vitro. This approach differs from use of expensive high-throughput screening (HTS) robotic labs to physically test thousands of diverse compounds a day often with an expected hit rate on the order of 1% or less with still fewer expected to be real leads following further testing (see drug discovery).

Efforts have been made to establish computer models of cellular behavior. For example, in 2007 researchers developed an in silico model of tuberculosis to aid in drug discovery, with the prime benefit of its being faster than real time simulated growth rates, allowing phenomena of interest to be observed in minutes rather than months. More work can be found that focus on modeling a particular cellular process such as the growth cycle of Caulobacter crescentus.


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