David S. Goodsell 🏳️🌈
@dsgoodsell
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~molecular art | molecular science~ free digital files of my paintings at RCSB PDB: https://t.co/gJwOxh1GXU…
RCSB PDB and Scripps Research
Joined October 2019
I finally found some time to put together a full key for the E. coli picture I did last year. There's a pdf @buildmodels with all the information (look for the link about half-way down the page):
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I am thrilled to announce that CellPAINT-2.0 is ready to use! With many new options, including the ability to import molecules from the PDB. Give it a try at Looking forward to seeing what you create! @_AdamGardner @grinche @MartinaMaritan @buildmodels
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Cell wall is mostly finished on the E. coli painting. Jumping into the nucleoid now.
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Finished up the "CytoSkeleton" painting this afternoon!
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Finished up the Escherichia coli painting! Cross section showing all macromolecules, with cell wall in green, nucleoid in yellow/orange, and soluble stuff in blue and purple. A full-size file and short description is at PDB-101 @buildmodels at:
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Finished up the mRNA vaccine picture today. I have a few little things to clean up, then I'll post the big file @buildmodels . The vaccine structure is highly idealized, with spike mRNA in magenta, lipids in blue, and PEG-lipid in green. The background is blood serum or lymph.
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Close up of the newly-infected bacterial cell from "Bacteriophage T4 Infection." I drew the illustration in Photoshop at a scale of 1 pixel/nanometer.
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Coronavirus life cycle, with spikes being made in ER at top, viral replicases and double membrane vesicles at center, and budding viruses at the bottom. I'll be making a big file and a full description available @buildmodels in the near future.
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Finished up the coronavirus painting this morning! Six hours of painting squiggles. I'm working up a key now--it will be available along with the full-size file at RCSB PDB101 @buildmodels in a few days.
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"Caulobacter Polar Microdomain," collaboration with @LaskerKeren. The protein PopZ (yellow) forms a condensate at the poles of the cell, and recruits many client proteins and the nucleoid. The scene is 300 nm tall.
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Making some progress on the mRNA vaccine painting. Decided to add some background. Time to add more PEG chains.
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Getting down to the endgame on the E. coli painting. Have to fill in all those tiny white dots in the nucleoid background, then lots of squiggles to finish up the LPS on the surface. Hope to finish it this afternoon!
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Finished up the "Immunological Synapse" painting this afternoon! Time to get it framed and ready for the show.
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Eight hours of linework on the coronavirus life cycle painting! Finally ready to start the background (sorry about the lousy photo from my phone--I'll take better ones when the painting is finished).
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Finished the respiratory droplet painting, for SciCommMake @SigmaXiSociety @ScienceTalkOrg, with @buildmodels. SARS-CoV-2 in magenta, mucins in green, pulmonary surfactant lipid&protein in blue, antibodies in yellow.
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Gearing up to do an updated version of my old 1999 E. coli painting--starting with the fun stuff. here's my first sketch for the flagellar motor.
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Here's a quick preview of a ras signaling illustration I just completed, for use in an upcoming feature on structural biology of cancer at PDB-101 @buildmodels. The folded portions are from the PDB archive, the wiggly bits are from AlphaFold2, all cobbled together in Photoshop.
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Let's see if this works. Putting together a little CellPAINT movie for my talk at #EMBOStructBio tomorrow. Try it yourself at !
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Making some progress on the T4 phage illustration! Phage DNA white, cellular DNA purple, ribosomes and RNApol cyan, plus a bunch of other stuff. Still so much to do. mRNA next.
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Congratulations to @MartinaMaritan for winning the @vizbi poster prize! Check out her poster at #VIZBI
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Finished up the inkwork on the apoptosis travel poster for the comic "Čapek". I'll clean up a few things in Photoshop, and it will be ready to go!
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My new favorite structure. seems like I'm saying that every other day with the current "CryoEM Revolution"! Entry 7cgo @buildmodels -- so much amazing new stuff to explore these days!
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Coronavirus life cycle painting is a disaster with light RNA strands! Ugh--no contrast at all. I tried changing the ER/DMV to green, and that didn't help much. Going to paint all the RNA with a darker color and see if that fixes the problem.
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Finished the "Insulin Release" painting this morning. I'll be showing it at the @ACAxtal meeting in Portland, and I'll put a full-size file at PDB-101 @buildmodels when I get a few free moments. Insulin crystal in yellow, fused vesicle and cell membranes in green, ECM in purples.
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Finished the plant cell wall painting! Cellulose synthase complex in green and cellulose in tan, plus a bunch of other fun stuff. I'll put a full description @buildmodels when I get a few free moments. Bet you can guess the topic of the Feb Molecule of the Month!
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Starting a painting of a plant cell wall. Here's the first sketch: cellulose synthase complex moving along a microtubule and making cellulose.
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The full-size file and explanatory material for the coronavirus life cycle painting are now available @buildmodels -- for prints, puzzles or whatever you want to do with it. If you come up with fun ways to use it, I'd love to see!
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So many squiggles! Viruses are mostly finished in the coronavirus life cycle painting. Time to take a break and make some cookies.
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Finished up the JCVI-syn3A minimal cell painting this afternoon--the first time I've done a picture with an entire cellular proteome! I'm going to clean up a few things, then I'll put the full size image and a key on PDB-101 @buildmodels. #sciart
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Finished "Bacteriophage T4 Infection" this morning. The thin white line at left, which folds up and down 10 times, depicts the length of the T4 genome. After I add a few finishing touches and make sure I haven't forgotten anything, I'll put the full-size file @buildmodels.
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Finished up the myelin painting this morning! Wrapped oligodendrocyte in yellow and orange. Axon with green membrane, cytoskeleton in blue, and a mitochondrion in purple. Working now on a full description for @buildmodels --here's a quick preview of the picture.
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Found some time to paint this afternoon--the virus is in, and ribosomes.
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Finished the "Casein Micelle" painting--the micelle is the big squiggly thing, and the yellow stuff at the top is the edge of a milk fat globule. Still need to clean a few things up, then I'll release the full-size file @buildmodels with the December Molecule of the Month.
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First tweet! Create your own cartoony molecules at:
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Finished up the "SARS-CoV-2 Fusion" painting this afternoon--I'll put a full-size file and a description on PDB-101 @buildmodels when I get a few free moments. #cellspace #SciCommMake @SigmaXiSociety @ScienceTalkOrg
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Finished the Rous Sarcoma Virus painting--it's a commission for Gregory Morgan for the cover of his upcoming book "Cancer Virus Hunters: From Chicken Tumors to the HPV Vaccine"
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The foreground is all finished and outlined on the E. coli picture. Time to start filling in the background.
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Just finished the red blood cell painting--hemoglobin in red, blood plasma in yellows at the top, and the amazing membrane/cytoskeleton in purple.
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"HIV-Infected Cell" shows a T-cell with integrated HIV-1 DNA (thin white lines at upper right) and viruses assembling and budding at the cell surface. Full-size files, hand drawn at a scale of 1 nm/pixel, are free for use at: and
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Is there interest in a molecular/cell coloring book? Here's a RBC/plasma pic I did for PDB101 @buildmodels a while back to give you an idea of possibilities (get the pdf at ). #sciart #inktober
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I got my first jab of the mRNA vaccine this afternoon--so happy about that. To celebrate, here's a little preview of a new version of cellPAINT for drawing vaccine-related scenes. We'll be launching a new contest @buildmodels later this week with it--stay tuned for more info!
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Almost finished! I always love this part of the process. As I add darker background molecules, the painting turns into a mess because the remaining bits of white paper dominate the view. But when I fill them with black, it suddenly transforms into a comprehensible scene.
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All finished with the sketch for the E. coli painting! Hoping to find time tomorrow to transfer it to the watercolor paper and start laying in some color.
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Foreground of the E. coli painting is almost finished. The big blank spot in the middle will be PDH (that will be an adventure!), and a few soluble enzymes need to be added.
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Just put a few new paintings @buildmodels: myoglobin packed into a whale muscle cell and a rework of the extracellular matrix painting from my book (both for the PDB50 celebration), and a red blood cell membrane and cytoskeleton. They're available at:
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I'm very happy to announce that I have retired! I'm equally happy that @janetiwasa has agreed to continue the Molecule of the Month @buildmodels. Read about this at
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The full-size file for "Bacteriophage T4 Infection" is freely available @buildmodels at: I drew it at a scale of 1 pixel/nm, so the file is huge and hopefully good for poster-size prints. Here's a detail of the bursting cell.
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Finished adding the foreground molecules in the "Cytoskeleton" painting. Time to start filling in all those remaining white spaces!
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Finished up the sketch of the coronavirus life cycle painting, to be part of an educational feature @buildmodels. This is one of the most complex images that I've ever done. please wish me luck!
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Finished up the trickiest part of the myelin painting this afternoon--all those layers of wrapped oligodendrocyte.
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Getting to work on the Coronavirus painting this morning--started with the "corona" of spike S proteins. M proteins next, if I can find some time later today.
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Found some time this morning to finish up the influenza vaccine painting. Recombinant vaccine in red, interacting with B-cell receptors and triggering a flurry of signaling inside the cell. #sciart
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I'm gearing up to do a painting of an entire JCVI-syn3A minimal genome cell. First step: predicted structures of ~90 uncharacterized proteins with AlphaFold2. Here's a style sheet for how I'm going to represent them in the painting. Now to draw pictures of the better-known stuff!
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A fun side project: I was invited to do a page for a new comic called Čapek--the issue is a travel guide to the afterlife. They wanted (no surprise) a biological subject from me--here's my first full sketch. Looking forward to the challenge of b&w linework--it's been years.
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A coloring book version of the coronavirus picture is on the @buildmodels site -- get the PDF here:
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Just got this in the mail--a painting of RSV I did a few years ago, commissioned for the cover of a soon-to-be-published book!
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Finally finished the style sheets for the E. coli painting--several hundred of the most abundant proteins plus a bunch of wonders-of-nature that had to be included. Time to start building the sketch of them in the cell!
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A full-size tif file for the Caulobacter painting is now available at PDB-101 (@buildmodels): @LaskerKeren and I are also working on a short paper to describe the science behind our collaboration on the painting.
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I finished up the two little coronavirus paintings. I have something special planned for them: my lab and @buildmodels are launching a CellPAINT contest next week, and these are the prizes. There will be "science" and "art" categories--so start thinking about what you want to do!
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Finished up the virus--just have to add some depth to the surrounding background!
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Painting of the "germline targeting" approach to HIV vaccine design. Soluble Env glycoproteins (magenta) with different amounts of glycosylation are binding to B-cell receptors (Y-shaped green molecules) and launching a bunch of signaling on the inner side of the B-cell membrane.
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Coronavirus sketch--just need to add some background.
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A fun project I did with Nature! This incorporates some new information from cryoEM on the spikes and the nucleoprotein of SARS-CoV-2. I'll post the full-size picture @buildmodels with more information.
This week on the Nature cover: Covid questions. From virus transmission to antibody response. Browse the issue here:
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The journal "Structure" just let me know that the final version of the "Illustrate" paper is up and ready:
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Whew! Looks like it's going to work with darker RNA, and the bright magenta will still make the RNA be the center of the story.
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I'm launching CellSpace, a guided workshop for cellular and molecular SciArt. Information at: . Please look carefully at the prerequisites & ground rules, and if this looks like something useful for you, send me an e-mail and I'll get you signed up.
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Making more progress on the T4 phage illustration. All the mRNA (viral and cellular) is in, added most of the cell wall, and just finished adding a bunch of chaperonins. Now I need to add lots and lots and lots of soluble molecules.
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So much wonderful creativity! If you want the page to color yourself, it's on the @buildmodels site at:
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Added all the filaments to the "Cytoskeleton" painting today. On to the ribosomes next.
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Working with @LaskerKeren on style sheets for the Caulobacter PopZ painting. It's like the E. coli painting I did a while back, but just different enough that I need to question everything.
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So. Many. Squiggles. Doing some inking this morning on the Caulobacter painting.
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So glad to be part of this amazing Twitter science community. Spent the morning retrofitting the PEG in the mRNA vaccine painting with more "mushroom" conformations. Thanks to @proteinchemist.for the suggestion. Haven't used opaque watercolor in years!
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I just put large files for three recent paintings on PDB-101 @buildmodels: "Insulin Release," "HIV Vaccine," and one I haven't shared here before, "Phage-based COVID-19 Vaccine." You can find them at
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Finished up the foreground of the cell wall painting, and added all the outlines. Time to jump into the background molecules now.
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This is going to be a complicated one! Finished up the cell wall sketch this afternoon--time to transfer it to the Arches paper and then start adding some color.
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Membranes mostly finished on the E. coli sketch. Now I need to fill in the empty areas with a bunch of ribosomes and other soluble stuff.
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The full-size file and a key for the "Casein Micelle" painting are @buildmodels. The Molecule of the Month that goes with it has been bumped to January--stay tuned!
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Finished up the foreground color and outlines this afternoon for the syn3A cell picture. Next up, adding background molecules to give the whole thing some depth.
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Starting a coronavirus life cycle painting. Got all the reading done and I'm starting to block out the scene. ER at the top, double-membrane vesicle below that, and a big vesicle with budding viruses at the bottom.
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Sketch for a new painting--antibody neutralization of poliovirus
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Got some stuff off my desk, so I'm taking a few days off to paint! Working up style sheets for the "Cytoskeleton" paintings--spent the morning updating how I'll draw human ribosomes and other protein-synthesis machinery.
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Hooray! Just got this from RedBubble and the colors are bright with good contrast. I set up a shop: FYI: I've only tested it on this one white t-shirt, so I don't know how successful it will be on other colors. Let me know if you try something different!
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Putting the finishing touches on one of the most complex pictures I've ever done. It shows a cell infected with HIV-1, as part of outreach work for the @BHIVE_Center. Here's a little process animation--I'll post the full-size file and a description after I clean up a few things.
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Making some progress on the cell wall painting--finished the cytoplasm and plasma membrane today, and starting to fill in all the wiggly polysaccharides in the background.
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Added the mucins, IgA and other surrounding stuff--foreground all finished!
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So many ribosomes! Just need to add the soluble enzymes (in one of my favorite colors, a mix of cobalt blue+viridian to give a beautiful turquoise), and the foreground will be finished. Then on to outlining and background molecules.
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In the middle of a new project that I'm calling "Crystallographs"--depictions of crystal lattices rendered with probably to be printed large-scale on fabric for the show. Here's my favorite so far--nucleosomes from @buildmodels
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Getting to the endgame on the Caulobacter painting. The S-layer and most of the condensate are finished and made some progress on the periplasm and nucleoid.
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So many squiggles! Doing some line work on the milk/casein painting today.
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Added all the foreground colors to the Caulobacter condensate painting (collaboration with @LaskerKeren ).
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I'm completely overwhelmed and humbled by the response for my first two days on Twitter. Many thanks for the incredible kudos! Newbie alert: I'm still trying to figure out the Twitter navigation and etiquette, so please excuse me while I fumble a bit with trying to keep up.
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Membranes are all in the sketch--the eraser was the most important piece of equipment--made a rookie mistake and drew all the M proteins upside down in the ER. Ugh! Now to launch into the RNA and ribosomes.
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Just put a new painting in the gallery @buildmodels. I did this in collaboration with @johan_elf_ to highlight their recent work on RecA and DNA. A high-resolution file is at
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Busy at work on a commission--Rous Sarcoma Virus binding to receptors on a cell surface. Foreground is all finished--getting to work now on the background.
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I've been trying to get caught up with the gallery of paintings @buildmodels -- just posted the full painting and key for the cell wall painting: Still have to do a new red blood cell painting, and the two on the origin of life.
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Made some good progress on the E. coli painting yesterday. First goal for this morning: the flagellar motor.
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