Terrific Pixar-style Harvard animation on molecular biology
Posted by attilachordash on September 26, 2006
In my biologically committed childhood I fantasized about a movie which presents all the main actors of the cell machinery: nucleic acids, enzymes, cytoskeleton (see left), ribosomes (mRNA translation into polypeptide chain, see right), hydro
phob and hydrophil proteins, lipid membrane bilayers, kinesins and so on. Now BioVisions from Harvard made half my dreams (no intranuclear story just cytoplasmic) come true, although I am just not sure about the music. Conception and scientific content: Alain Viel
, Robert A. Lue, animation by John Liebler. The company behind is XVIVO, a Connecticut based scientific animation company. The movie is extremely useful for educational purposes. Link via BoingBoing from astroshack.
Imagine this made out of Lego bricks. When will Lego produce MatterStorms for bioDIYers besides Mindstorms for infoDIYers? Bionicle is not about biology at all.
Amie said
I dont think that is DNA cleavage that is going on (on the left). That is the breaking of a cytiskeletal structure. DNA is never shown in this movie. Only the surface of the nucleus with the mRNAs poping out.
attilachordash said
Amie, thanks for your smart comment, you’re right, post updated.
It is not DNA, but a cytoskeletal compound, probably actin because
it is composed of two actin chains oriented in a helicoidal shape near to the plasma membrane, and this helix structure could explain why I mixed the 2, although the background structures are clearly not chromosomes but cytoskeletal entities.
Get Inside A Molecular Biologist’s Imagination | Bitesize Bio said
[...] – over a year old, but I have never come across it before now. Thanks to Attila at the excellent PIMM – Partial Immortalization blog for the heads up. Like this? Click here to receive RSS or e-mail updates about new [...]
Evan said
tHANKS!
It’s a little over my students heads but I will show it. I love it!
Jonathan said
I totally agree with Amie, It’s hard to imagine DNA snipping off like that. I mean why would the cell even want to do that?
BTW, there’s a version of the same video with commentary by (I think) Dr. Lue who’s part of the scientific team that put up this animation. Kudos to them! I really do hope they have more to come! Thank you Harvard!