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\begin{document}

\title{Award-winning tools to study the molecular machinery of the cells}



\author[1]{Annabel Romero}%
\author[1]{Ernesto Llamas }%
\affil[1]{Journal of Sketching Science}%


\vspace{-1em}



  
  \date{May 27, 2024}


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Imagine you could see how our cells work at the molecular level? Kind of
taking a tour around the cell and see how each of the machines that
compose the factory called~\emph{cell}~are in synchrony. Sounds like
science fiction but in fact, there have been several efforts to
understand how these tiny little machines, called~\emph{proteins},
work.~

For decades, the most traditional technique to study proteins at their
atomic level was~\emph{X-ray crystallography}. The name gives a hint of
how it works: you make crystals and then shoot them with X-rays (there
is a place called ``synchrotron'' where a powerful beam of X-rays is
generated for these types of studies) to get the coordinates for each
atom that composes the protein of the study \cite{McSweeney2014}. Many
protein structures have been solved in the last century giving us tons
of information about these sophisticated machines. Mechanisms of action,
drug design and the discovery of the DNA has come along thanks to X-ray
crystallography. And of course, many Nobel prizes have been awarded to
discoveries related to this powerful technique \cite{Jaskolski2014}.

Another technique that has been around for a while is
called~\emph{cryo-Electron Microscopy}~(cryo-EM). The idea is to freeze
(where the ``cryo'' name comes from) your protein on a support, called a
grid (that is 3 mm wide), in what it would be its``natural'' state.~Then
the protein is bombarded with electrons to make a picture, or movie,
that reveals the shape of the protein. However, it became more popular
only recently due to technological advances that allowed the recording
of movies, rather than taking single pictures, to reduce the blurriness
of the image. Think of it as recording a movie of a fast runner, rather
than taking a single picture of him/her where any details of the runner
would be blurred by the runner's motion: you take a movie and see how
his/her legs move back and forth~\cite{Cheng2015}.~

Since some motion occurs when electrons hit the protein, the possibility
of recording movies and having better cameras allowed for higher
resolution (basically you can see more details of the protein shape).
With these new features, there was an explosion of new protein
structures and the so-called resolution revolution with cryo-EM started.
In fact, the 2017~Nobel prize in chemistry was awarded in honor of three
of the main contributors to the development of
cryo-EM~\cite{Cressey2017}.~

This watercolor describes both of these techniques going from the
protein in solution to the final structure.~\selectlanguage{english}
\begin{figure}[h!]
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=0.70\columnwidth]{figures/xtalEM-opuntia/xtalEM-opuntia}
\caption{{Infographic depicting the basic steps to get an atomic model of a
protein by two popular techniques: X ray-Crystallography and Cryo
Electron Microscopy
{\label{462174}}%
}}
\end{center}
\end{figure}

\par\null

\section*{Contributions}\label{contributions}

Annabel Romero wrote the text and made the watercolor. She obtained her
PhD in Structural Biology from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in 2017 .
She owns a science divulgation blog called Opuntia Visual where she
merges art with science. Currently, she is a Scientist at a
pharmaceutical company where she studies protein structures of drug
targets. You can follow her on
Instagram~\href{https://www.instagram.com/annaneko/}{@annaneko},
Facebook:~\href{https://www.facebook.com/annabel.watercolor/}{Opuntia
Visual},
Twitter:~\href{https://twitter.com/opuntiavisual?lang=en}{@OpuntiaVisual}
and her blog at~\href{https://annabelromero.com/}{annabelromero.com}.

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