Visualising Molecular Machines outside the Textbook

(August 31st, 2009) Textbooks provide their content in a static and two-dimensional form. As such, they are limited to conveying impressions of complex molecular actions within cells. We could do more by developing the potential of computer animated teaching videos, says Bettina Dupont.

When I was a student of biology, textbooks depicted the process of DNA replication as two-dimensional line drawings. Enzymes appeared as static coloured circles, ovals and doughnuts. It was difficult to figure out how the duplication of the two DNA strands was co-ordinated and how the different molecular machines implicated in the replication process interacted with each other. Nowadays, research institutes, pharmaceutical companies and scientific publishers provide us with computer-animated videos that show the three-dimensional actions of large enzymatic complexes in motion. With ever more refined structural data available and the increasing performance and capacity of computers, the workings of molecular machines can be displayed in their whole beauty and sophistication. It’s a challenging task to show the several dozen protein factors involved in DNA replication but I would love to see more of these videos with more details, please...

To view DNA replication videos and other teaching material from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, go to http://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/dna/animations.html.