MacroMolecule Monday

This is most college students' savior : Alcohol Dehydrogenase.

Please don't fire me for the bad pun in the post title.

Rendered in PyMol, caption by sleep deprivation.

Coordinates downloaded from the PDB, courtesy of :

Al-Karadaghi, S., Cedergren-Zeppezauer, E.S., Hovmoller, S. (1994) Refined crystal structure of liver alcohol dehydrogenase-NADH complex at 1.8 A resolution. Acta Crystallogr.,Sect.D 50: 793-807

Crystal Structure Rorschach Fun!

What does this look like to you? BFF Post-Doc says hedge clippers or salad tongs. I am certain it looks mostly like a butterfly. We nearly came to blows over the issue. (OK, not really.) Is crystal structure Rorschach a common obsessional phenomenon like looking for words in protein sequences and gene names that spell or sound like dirty words? Or is it just the geeks in my lab that do this? I wonder.

The face of an obsession

Pretty, isn't she? This is my baby. My abusive love-hate relationship, my zen meditation, my object of worship. I rendered the image above in PyMOL, using the crystal coordinates provided by a previous graduate student. I like her best all goth-punked like this, but She Who Advises Me always insists on boring color schemes for posters and talks. So this image is my little act of rebellion. Showing her to the world in her goth-punk best. Like Spike unto Buffy in Season 5, I obsess for hours, but she beats the crap out of me on a regular basis. Why am I so scorned? Yet, I am the only one she really trusts... I have taken her places she has never been before.