Journal Covers

Art in Science

Vitruvian HBV Capsid on Display

“Vitruvian HBV Capsid” selected for UD’s Art in Science Exhibition and FASEB BioArt Scientific Image & Video Competition in 2018.

The hepatitis B virus (HBV) packages its genetic blueprint in a protein shell called a capsid. The capsid depicted here is based on a computational model, in which theoretical methods have been used to fill in missing pieces of an experimental structure derived from X-ray crystallography. Like the capsids of other spherical viruses, the proteins that make up the HBV capsid are arranged according to icosahedral symmetry.

The “Vitruvian HBV Capsid” artwork celebrates the beauty of capsid architecture, the elegant mathematical relationships that describe capsid construction, and the incredible manner in which viruses leverage symmetry to reduce the number of different proteins they incorporate, and, thus, the size of the genetic blueprint they must encode.

Crochet

HIV-1 capsid crochet – Pentamer of hexamers

Narration

Chemical Visualization of Human Pathogens: The Retroviral Capsids
Scientific Visualization & Data Analytics Showcase at Supercomputing 2015

Intrinsic Stepwise Translocation of Stretched ssDNA in Graphene Nanopores
ACS LiveSlides Presentation for Hu Qui, et al. Nano Letters (2015) 15, 8322-8330.