CNR NANO - Istituto Nanoscienze Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche

- 23.07.2015 - Ciro Cecconi's article inspires a 'doodle-art' cover image
Ciro Cecconi's paper inspired the very artistic cover image of this month's Biophysical Journal. The image is a simplistic doodle-art representation of the optical tweezers setup he has used for his research. Individual neuronal calcium sensor protein molecules were mechanically manipulated by means of DNA molecular handles for the study of their folding mechanism and its dependence on different ions.

The image is intended to illustrate a complex scientific idea in a naive and somewhat fairytale-like manner in the form of a doodle. In the creative process of designing experiments, scientists often doodle their notes and ideas in similar simplistic form before taking their design to the next level.

The image was composed on-the-fly by a graphical artist (Hanne Grønne) and a 16 year old girl (Asta Andersen) while the work was orally described to them and it reflects their direct interpretations. Neither of them have any scientific background.

The scientific paper can be found HERE

For more information on the cover image creative process, see the article HERE

Link https://biophysicalsociety.wordpress.com/2015/07/07/doodling-science-protein-folding-deconstructed/