I think I’m going to do the protein alpha amylase, the enzyme responsible for breaking down starch for digestion. For my sculpture, I’m thinking of covering a basic pipe cleaner structure with cornstarch. Now I just need to find out how to make it more interesting color-wise (white would be too bland).
Protein artists
- 2010 Protein Portraits in the news
- Alissa Eckert
- Bathsheba Grossman
- Byron Rubin
- David Goodsell
- Drew Berry
- Gael McGill
- Irving Geis
- Jane Richardson
- Janet Iwasa
- Jenny Langley
- Julian Voss-Andreae
- Mara Haseltine
- Maria Winners infectious art
- Mike Tyka
- Protein art by May_k
- Steve Miller
- Wunderkammer crochet
Protein science
- AlphaFold
- AlphaFold: How to predict structures
- AlphaFold: Tutorial
- David Goodsell's Molecule of the Month
- Domain classification: CATH
- Domain classification: SCOP
- Folding at home
- Foldit
- Jane Richardson modeling
- Perkins: History of Molecular Representation Part 2
- Protein Spotlight (SIB)
- RCSB PDB: Search the protein databank
Studio tricks and materials
Viral artistry
- 2015 Year of the Phage
- Ann Kiernan for The Washington Post
- Bad news wrapped in protein
- Corona virus mandala
- Goodsell CoV-2
- Illustration by Nicholas Konrad
- SARS-CoV-2 Spike Glycoprotein- 2D illustration
- SARS-CoV-2 Spike Glycoprotein-Macarroni models
- SARS-CoV-2 spike protein models, space filling, by David Veesler
- Sean McSorley, Virosphere illustration
- The Spiky Blob Seen Around the World
Weekly topics
Perhaps the substrate (the starch) could be white and the amylase (the protein) could be colored artistically to match its function. Let’s see… I’m looking up PDB 1SMD … wow. This is cool… The enzyme has two domains 1) an alpha/beta barrel, and 2) a sandwich. OK. What colors might you choose for a barrel and a sandwich??. And here’s something else: To be broken down, the starch has to first get past a floppy “glycine rich” gate that looks like Gumby (I’m not making this up … well, OK, I am). So this enzyme has a Gumby, a sandwich, and a cracker barrel. Sounds like an episode for the next Pixar film!