As Dassault Systèmes wrapped our “Science in the Age of Experience” event, we had the chance to catch up with two of our scientific leaders. Reza Sadeghi, Chief Scientific Officer, BIOVIA and Bruce Englemann, Chief Technology Officer, SIMULIA shared their thoughts on accelerating science-based innovations and the way we look at the relationships between simulation, design and manufacturing. This was the first Dassault Systèmes conference that brought the BIOVIA and SIMULIA user communities together. BIOVIA’s focus is on biological, chemical and materials modeling and simulation particularly at the nano and molecular level, while SIMULIA’s strengths include deep materials modeling, simulation and optimization of product performance. Here, we explore the possibilities of the work they can create together.
How has the potential of powerful, complimentary technologies from BIOVIA and SIMULIA working together taken on a deeper meaning?
Bruce Engelmann: We have arrived at a critical moment where something momentous is happening outside the software realm – in the world of manufacturing – that is affecting the way we’ll all be looking at simulation and design going forward, and that something is the industrialization of additive manufacturing, or 3D printing. Additive manufacturing is going to fundamentally change the way that people design things. When you design for AM, simulation and design have to be done at the same time, they can’t be sequential.
Reza Sadeghi: As the design envelope widens, it’s important to keep in mind that it extends in both directions: outward towards the macro, finished products, but also inward across microscales, including atomistic at which the fundamental basis of matter can be engineered. Predicting material behavior, be it biological or polymeric, has been the norm for life sciences, and the same laws of science can be leveraged for other industries to create materials purposefully designed to perform.
So how do we bridge the gap between materials engineering and product engineering?
Bruce Englemann: The convergence of the BIOVIA and SIMULIA brands fuses these new science-driven materials and engineering capabilities with virtual product engineering and performance simulation – or as we say, bridging the abyss between the micro and macro worlds and enabling atom-to-product design and optimization.
Reza Sadeghi: The demand for faster innovation and better performing products today exceeds the performance envelope of available materials, and therefore require a new generation of materials. However it can take up to a decade or more for a new material to be commercially viable. BIOVIA enables the in silico engineering of new materials ranging from nano-enhanced and eco-friendly polymers to stronger yet lighter multifunctional composites and alloys. With regards to health and life sciences, not only does BIOVIA enable in silico disease modeling and therapeutics design, our solutions also determine the safety and efficacy of therapeutics, and the best way to deliver these drugs into the human body. In fact, we are enabling the convergence of materials engineering, nanotechnology, and therapeutics design to transform the traditional shotgun approach of therapeutics delivery to precise and targeted approaches. When combined with our unified lab management and predictive scientific analytics solutions, in silico multiscale multiphysics capabilities from both BIOVIA and SIMULIA unlock synergies between modeling and experimentation that support the goal of the Materials Genome Initiative of “twice as fast at half the cost,” as well as the goal of the Precision Medicine Initiative of “delivering the right treatment to the right person at the right time.”
Which of the world’s greatest scientists have been the most influential on you and your career, and why?
Bruce Engelmann: Isaac Newton. He constructed many of the underpinnings of what we now know as physics, developed the equations of motion, and was a practicing alchemist. Alchemists were trying to make dreams of that time come true through science. Newton helped make our dreams of realistic simulation and behavior prediction of product, nature, and life possible.
Reza Sadeghi: I have to call out both Newton and Schrödinger. Newton’s contributions are foundational and far-reaching. And when it was observed that Newton’s laws of motion did not sufficiently describe the behavior of matter at the quantum scale, Schrödinger extended the reach of quantum mechanics with his wave theory, and the notion of wave-particle duality. In doing so, Schrödinger enabled us to model and influence the behavior of ALL matter. Furthermore, because Schrödinger advanced the notion that the laws of chemistry and physics can be applied to understand living things, his contributions have been pivotal for modeling biological systems, diseases, and cures.
