February 2nd, 2007 by misvan
According to researchers at Virginia Tech, DNA is a lot more flexible than previously thought.
Click to download the structural fluctuations of the Nucleosomal DNA movie.
Virginia Tech researchers used novel methodology and the university’s System X supercomputer to carry out what is probably the first simulation that explores full range of motions of a DNA strand of 147 base pairs, the length that is required to form the fundamental unit of DNA packing in the living cells — the nucleosome. Contrary to a long-held belief that DNA is hard to bend, the simulation shows in crisp atomic detail that DNA is considerably more flexible than commonly thought.
Every cell in your body has identical DNA. The DNA in your muscle cells is the same as the DNA in your hair cells, but these cells obviously perform very differently. According to Alexey Onufriev, assistant professor of computer sciences and physics at Virginia Tech this occurs “because, roughly speaking, the DNA in different cell types is packed differently and the complexes it forms with the surrounding proteins are in different positions, so only the relevant part of the code can be read at a time,â€
Previously held views that it takes a lot of energy to bend the DNA double-helix are now being challenged by this discovery.
Using 128 of System X’s 1,100 processors, the research resulted in a System X movie revealing DNA wiggling like a worm, showing greater flexibility than expected from the traditional view. The DNA packing in the nucleosome is also found to be surprisingly loose. “The implication is that it may not cost much energy to bend the DNA – even to bend sharply,†said Onufriev.
Simulations like these will help medical animators visualize cellular events as they occur closer to real-time and visualize how individual molecules and proteins interact in their surrounding cellular environment.
“Experiment cannot always probe atomic detail of living molecules because they are too small and often move too fast, said Onufriev. “But we can combine computational power with good algorithms to simulate these motions at high (atom-scale) resolution.“It is an exciting time to do molecular modeling,†he said. “The computing power and the methodology have come to the point that we can begin to fully probe biology on timescales very relevant to living things – such as DNA packing.â€
Read the full article here.
Read the original article in the Biophysical Journal here.
January 6th, 2007 by misvan
Meet the man behind The Inner Life of a Cell. John Liebler, lead medical animator for XVIVO, a scientific animation company based out of Connecticut. He has a background in Graphic Design/Illustration from the University of Connecticut. Although he does not have formal training as a medical illustrator, he relies on his research skills to learn as much as he can about any given scientific topic.
Learn to research. Learn how to find the reference materials which will inform your animation. The art is in the details. Get as much reference as you can, because the details that are already present in nature can be far more beautiful and strange than anything we could make up. Even when you have to make something up, if you’ve done the research, you’ll have a wealth of factual data to fabricate with. Art is about making choices, and sometimes just guesses, but the more information you have, the better your choices will be.
John’ award winning animation, “The Inner Life of the Cell” is really pushing the boundaries of what medical animations can accomplish in education.
The first in a planned series of animations for Harvard University’s Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, “The Inner Life of the Cell” takes undergrads beyond textbooks and vividly illustrates the mechanisms that allow a white blood cell to sense its surroundings and respond to an external stimulus. This animation explores the different cellular environments in which these communications take place.
Self taught 3D animator, John created “The Inner Life of the Cell” using Newtek’s Lightwave 3D, Adobe After Effects, and Happy Digital’s HD Instance plug-in. The protein structures in the cell were created as accurately as possible using the Protein Data Bank Reader. Students viewing this animation and others like it will get much better representations of cell structures. No more of those oversimplified shapes representing proteins. Excellent accomplishment John.
Take a look at John’s new web site Mesh and Bones.com
Read more of Newtek’s interview with John and his thoughts on animation as an educational tool.
January 5th, 2007 by misvan
To give you an appreciation of where the field of medical illustration is headed, let me share with you this amazing animation created by XVIVO, a scientific animation company. It’s been given a lot of attention because of the way it was animated to create a more fluid, representative feel of what goes on inside of a cell. Frankly, it’s beautiful.
Medical illustrators don’t just draw bones and muscles for textbooks. Now more than ever they are called upon to direct, edit, and produce their representation of how the body functions. We are the cinematographers of a documentary on the human body and we have to make it interesting. The human body is a beautiful and dynamic machine. So the same effort and passion that goes into making a car commercial for instance, should be put into making animations or illustrations of the human body. Say goodbye to the ball and stick representations, or Lego like lock and key diagrams and animations!
