Open-Source Simulator

NetBioDyn

A playful biological sandbox for creative modeling and learning.

Launch Documentation

Assemble your agents with colorful bricks, create living worlds, and watch them evolve.

Visual authoring for biological agents
Fast, reproducible simulations
Built with and for the community
Apprentissage de la méthode scientifique
Free, open-source, no cookies, no sign-up

Neon biology lab flask made of playful modules

Colorful ecosystem orbit showing living networks

Stacked modules combining into living systems

Collaborative nodes connected by glowing links

Radiant starburst representing creative insights

Features

Everything you need to experiment

Discover the building blocks that turn ideas into interactive biological simulations.

Visual Modeling

Drag-and-drop components to compose living systems without writing code.

Multi-scale Simulation

Explore molecular interactions, cellular behaviors, and population-level phenomena in a single environment.

Playback controls for iterating on scenarios

Scenario Playback

Replay experiments, tweak parameters, and capture insights for your notebooks or publications.

Group of connected droplets symbolizing the community

Open Community

Extend NetBioDyn with custom modules and share them with a growing community of bioengineers.

Use Cases

Made for explorers and educators

Students

Learn systems thinking by building models that come alive as you experiment.

Educators

Introduce complex concepts with interactive simulations that spark curiosity.

Why teach modeling with NetBioDyn?

Researchers

Prototype biological circuits quickly and iterate with reproducible digital experiments.

Workflow

From idea to insight

NetBioDyn guides you through a clear loop: explore, build, simulate, and share.

Loop illustrating explore, build, simulate and share steps

Explore Modules

Start from ready-to-use templates covering genetics, ecology, and synthetic biology.
Build & Tune

Combine agents, rules, and parameters to reflect the dynamics you want to study.
Simulate & Share

Launch simulations, capture insights, and export scenarios for collaboration.

Documentation

Learn, experiment, and teach

Explore guided exercises, watch an overview video, and dive into the technical manual.

Hands-on exercises

Six classroom-ready scenarios covering ecology, genetics, and systems biology. Google Docs format.

Video walkthrough

Watch the NetBioDyn tour to discover key workflows and tips for first-time users.

Visit the YouTube channel

Technical manual

Detailed reference for advanced modeling, custom scripting, and integration workflows.

Download PDF

Awards

NetBioDyn at the heart of multiple awards

A snapshot of the prizes that celebrate NetBioDyn’s value in education and research communities.

Les Cordées de la Réussite

Poster de simulation de caries dentaires

Congrats to Cécilia, Sara, Léa, Anaëlle, and Steven for their first prize at Les Cordées de la Réussite with their tooth decay simulation built with NetBioDyn.

Conférence Nationale des Urgentistes (SFMU)

Recognising NetBioDyn for advancing emergency medicine training with interactive simulations.

Académie des Sciences

The Passion-Mer course between UBO and Lycée Kérichen-La Pérouse received the interdisciplinary teaching prize. NetBioDyn is used to simulate fish respiration.

Community

Learn with a collaborative network

Join a committed community advancing science education for everyone.

UBO

Découvrir l'Université de Bretagne Occidentale.

Visiter le site de l'UBO

Institut français de l'éducation (IFÉ)

Access lesson plans and research material curated by the IFÉ team to bring NetBioDyn into the classroom.

Explore the IFÉ hub

NetBioDyn manual for second-year students

High school Grade 10 manual

Download the NetBioDyn handbook tailored for 10th-grade classes with step-by-step activities.

Manuel scolaire 1ère

Download the NetBioDyn handbook designed for 2nd-year classes to structure lessons and lab activities.

Case studies library

Browse classroom-tested scenarios and project write-ups contributed by educators and researchers worldwide.

Open the library

GitHub repository

Follow the source code, suggest improvements, and clone NetBioDyn tools to build your own simulations.

View the repository

Cite NetBioDyn

Share how you cite NetBioDyn

Did you complete a project with NetBioDyn or publish a paper that cites or uses it? Thank you for your trust—feel free to cite the resources below.

NetBioDyn by Pascal BALLET and Jean-Charles ROGER: https://netbiodyn.org
Or the following article:
Modelling and Simulating Complex Systems in Biology: Introducing NetBioDyn – A Pedagogical and Intuitive Agent-Based Software. Pascal Ballet (LaTIM, INSERM, UMR 1101, Université de Bretagne Occidentale, France), Jérémy Rivière (Lab-STICC, CNRS, UMR 6285, Université de Bretagne Occidentale, France), Alain Pothet (Académie de Créteil, France), Michaël Theron (ORPHY, EA 4324, Université de Bretagne Occidentale, France), Karine Pichavant (ORPHY, EA 4324, Université de Bretagne Occidentale, France), Frank Abautret (Collège Max Jacob, France), Alexandra Fronville (Université de Bretagne Occidentale, France), and Vincent Rodin (Lab-STICC, CNRS, UMR 6285, Université de Bretagne Occidentale, France). In Data Analytics in Medicine: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications, 2020. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-1204-3.ch048