U. Kummer, Heidelberg University
Service center: de.NBI Systems Biology Service Center – de.NBI-SysBio
Although originally established for the modeling of cell biological processes, the modeling software COPASI (www.copasi.org) – one of the resources developed and maintained by de.NBI – is more and more used for modeling studies in epidemiology. This is probably due to the fact that it has an easy-to-use graphical interface and powerful numerics underneath. In addition, it is straightforward to swap between population models and stochastic models that model individuals seperately.
Right now, the software is used in several studies trying to understand the pandemic of SARS-CoV-2. We learned about some of these undertaken with COPASI on the international level. First results are already available, at https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.29.20045039v1.full.pdf.
Copasi is also listed at http://evbc.uni-jena.de/tools/coronavirus-tools/, a collection of bioinformatics resources for virus research.