The Dance of the Nascent Chain by Amir Bitran published on 2022-11-15T22:14:24Z This piece is inspired by the process through which proteins in our cells "fold" into their specific molecular structures. Proteins are molecules that play a role in every function we associate with life (growth, reproduction, metabolism, etc.) and, just like cars and other macroscopic machines, they require a specific molecular structure to perform their function. The "dance" in this piece depicts the process by which a protein, made up a chain of amino acid building blocks that are chemically strung together, twists and swirls around until it finds its correct structure. In the cell, this "dance" of protein folding is coupled to "rhythm" of another process--protein synthesis, whereby a protein is built one amino acid at a time by a machine called the ribosome. Just as tempo is linked to dance in real life, the "dance" of protein folding is tightly coupled to the rhythm with which amino acids are added to a protein as it's first being made, and changes to this tempo can ultimately affect the structure a protein adopts and its function. It is crucial that scientists study how proteins fold up correctly in the cell since abnormal protein folding is linked to diseases such as Alzheimer's.