Genetics and Health

Ecce Homology: Interactive Genetic Code

by Hsien Hsien Lei, PhD on July 20th, 2005

DNA, genes, and protein are invisible to the naked eye. Trying to visualize how they work in 3D is one of the greatest challenges to understanding how the molecular parts of our body fit together. Ecce Homology, on display at SIGGRAPH 2005 in Southern California, takes DNA sequences and turns them into interactive 40-foot wide and 12-foot tall images. (Medical News Today, July 21, 2005)

The coolest part of the exhibit is the chance to “draw” shapes that are then matched to existing genes and DNA similar to the way scientists use the online algorithm, BLAST, to match DNA sequences to known genes. There are some fantastic pictograms of rice genes and human genes at the Ecce Homology website.

Through slow and gestural whole-body exploration of the pictograms, each visitor performs a scientific experiment looking for evolutionary relationships between the human and model organism genomes. This is the very same experiment conducted by researchers participating in the world-wide genome sequencing projects and is done via web-based servers and interfaces using a web-based tool called “BLAST”. While interacting with the installation, visitors reveal the unseen operation of this fundamental “black box” of bioinformatics, the Basic Local Alignment Sequence Tool (BLAST). Results of visitors’ interactions, which initiate the automated comparisons of the human and rice genomes, are shown through changes in the calligraphic figures.

Wouldn’t it be fun to do see what kind of pictograms a genetic rumba with Ecce Homology would create?

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POSTED IN: General Genetics and Health