We are pleased to announce the release of StochSS Version 1.6!

StochSS: Stochastic Simulation Service, is an integrated development environment for modeling and simulation of discrete stochastic biochemical systems. An easy to use GUI enables researchers to quickly develop and simulate biological models on a desktop or laptop, which can then be expanded or combined to incorporate increasing levels of complexity. As the demand for computational power increases, StochSS is able to seamlessly scale up by deploying cloud computing resources. The software currently supports simulation of ODE and well-mixed discrete stochastic models, parameter estimation of discrete stochastic models, and simulation of spatial stochastic models.

New capabilities of Version 1.6 include:
- Spatial visualization now supports animation, wireframe rendering, and mesh slicing
- FlexCloud:  run ‘cloud’ jobs on dedicated hardware (in addition to using EC2)
- Import SBML models
- Many bug fixes and stability enhancements

For more details and instructions on how to obtain the code, visit us at www.StochSS.org.

Linda Petzold and Chandra Krintz
University of California Santa Barbara

Per Lotstedt and Andreas Hellander
Uppsala Universiteit