The GENESIS 3.0 Project: a universal graphical user interface and database for research, collaboration, and education in computational neuroscience

Background The General Neural Simulation System (GENESIS) was first released for general use in 1988 as part of the first Methods in Computational Neuroscience Meeting at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass. Since its release 19 years ago, GENESIS has provided one of the foundations for the ongoing course in Woods Hole, as well as courses offered by the European Union, courses in Mexico, Brazil, and India and soon in Japan, At last count GENESIS has also provided support for courses in at least 49 universities around the world where it has been used both as an instruction tool in realistic modeling of the nervous system, and as a simulation based tool for neurobiological education in general. The Book of GENESIS [1], which was designed to support both computational and neurobiological instruction has sold more than 6000 copies worldwide. This substantial support for the use of GENESIS in instruction has also provided the base for extensive and growing use of this software system in biological research providing the foundation for literally hundreds of peer reviewed scientific papers.