(Describer) Streams of light collide to create a globe filled with water. Title: Science Nation. A computer animation has spirals and straight connected branches.
(male narrator)
What's the best way
to know a protein?
(James Hinton)
From a teaching standpoint,
it's really important
that students be able
to touch, feel, see,
embrace, if you like,
these proteins.
(narrator)
Proteins are the
workhorses of cells.
With support from the
National Science Foundation,
University of Arkansas
biochemist James Hinton
researches
their structure and function.
About five years ago,
Hinton focused
on creating
a dramatically better way
of displaying the inner
workings of proteins.
(Hinton)
Kids are visual people
nowadays.
So I began to look around
for ways of visualizing
three-dimensional
structures.
(narrator)
Hinton worked with the
visualization company Virtalis
to use virtual reality
to show how proteins function,
interacting with everything
from DNA to a flu virus.
(Describer) The spirals.
With 3D glasses
and a huge screen,
students and professors
can interact with proteins.
(Hinton)
One thing that
pharmaceutical companies
are vitally interested
in these days is
how do you take a protein
that causes disease,
causes a problem,
and devise ways
of deactivating the protein?
(narrator)
Pharmaceutical companies
must go beyond creating drugs.
They must also
be able to update them,
as pathogens they're designed
to treat mutate and evolve.
You trick them a while,
then they modify themselves,
making the old drug
obsolete.
(Hinton)
Seeing the binding site
before you go
into the laboratory
and begin
making modifications
in your drug
is a very important thing.
(narrator)
The tool is now in wide use
internationally.
Paul Adams uses it
for cancer research.
Using immersive technology,
and boy, let me tell you,
it brings the point home
in three dimensions,
as opposed to, again,
using just a regular computer.
(narrator)
Hinton says virtual reality
is a great way
to entice young scientists.
Seeing them have fun is a joy.
Maybe one out of these
hundred or so kids will say,
"Well, biochemistry,"
or "Hmm, chemistry,
maybe I'd like that."
(narrator)
Hinton has done his part,
helping scientists
understand
the complicated
world of proteins
by reaching out
to touch one.
(Describer) The globe turns.
For Science Nation,
I'm Miles O' Brien.
