Anatomy and Art

a blog by Sara Egner

Viruses Made Beautifully in Glass

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Artist, Luke Jerram is making headlines with his new collection of glass sculpture models of viruses.

glass sculptures of viruses

If you follow this link, you’ll get to David Goodsell’s take on HIV (the first virus shown to the left there) and you can see the similarity.  It’s also a really awesome little interactive breaking down the individual molecular arrangement of the virus.
http://www.rcsb.org/pdb/101/static101.do?p=education_discussion/educational_resources/hiv-animation.html  In case you didn’t know, Goodsell is an outright master of medical illustration and representing molecules and viruses with incredible clarity and accuracy.

Larger images of the glass sculptures can be viewed here through The Verge’s coverage, where I first saw these.  It sounds like he is working with a virologist and a glass blower, and that neither are specifically a specialty for him.  I would love to know the name of the glass blower involved.  These are truly beautifully executed pieces.

Written by Sara

January 4th, 2014 at 5:08 pm

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