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Biomedicine in museums

Low budget gift wrapping ribbon model of the GPCR receptor

By February 2, 2010No Comments

prøveopstillinger 018As Bente writes on our Danish blog (Museionblog), we thought at first that Sven Erik Hansen (former consultant rheumatologist, now guest researcher here at Medical Museion) had a fit of belated Xmas nostalgia when he hanged this ‘thing’ made of coloured gift wrappage ribbons in our lunch room earlier today.

But it’s actually more museum-related than we first thought. Turned out it’s a play on one of the central images involved in the preparation phase we’re in right now for the next show in our external exhibition area in the main building of the Faculty of Health Sciences.

 We — i.e. Sven Erik, Adam BencardBente Vinge Pedersen and myself — have decided that the exhibition (to be opened in October) shall be a reflection on some of the central aspects of current research on the relation between obesity and type-2 diabetes.

 

We have started reading some of the scientific literature on G-proteins and G-protein coupled receptors (GPCR, not be confused with the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution :-), which play a crucial role in these and many other metabolic processes.

Sven Erik’s coloured ribbon decoration is a spontaneously made simple model of such a GPCR receptor. Here’s a more scientifically accurate one:

(from here)

I’m not suggesting that we shall aim for a low-budget exhibition. But it reminds me that sometimes you don’t need fancy 3D-software to make evocative molecular models.

We’ll get back with more news about the progress of the exhibition in the next couple of months.

Thomas Söderqvist

Author Thomas Söderqvist

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