Metal Binding Protein

This is an illustration of an artificially-designed metal-binding protein created by Dr. Jeremy Mills in the Baker lab.  This protein is unusual in that it binds metals using an amino acid residue not found in nature.  While I can't take any credit for the design, I did play a part in helping to quantify the affinity of the protein for zinc.  For full details about this project, see Mills et al. (2013) J. Am. Chem. Soc. 135(36):13393-9.

This rendering of PDB model 4IX0 was produced by exporting geometry from PyMOL in VRML format, cleaning it up in Blender, exporting it again in OBJ format, importing it into Maya 2014, and rendering with mental ray.  Final compositing with the background was done in Photoshop CS5.1.  We had hoped that J. Am. Chem. Soc. would use this as their cover image for the issue in which the article appeared, but sadly, they featured another article.

This image is not in the public domain, and may not be used for any purpose without the express consent of the copyright holder.  Please contact me for permissions.  Image copyright © 2013 Vikram K. Mulligan.