{"346371":{"#nid":"346371","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Molecular Artistry","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe atrium of the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience was swarmed by hundreds of guests on Saturday, October 18, for the BUZZ on Biotechnology, an annual outreach event geared toward teenaged students, an interactive open house to inspire future scientists, and maybe generate a little interest in attending the Georgia Institute of Technology.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe kids took part in a bunch of hands-on experiments, many of which are designed to teach something about biology at the molecular level. They went from demonstration table to demonstration table, building edible cells out of candy or extracting DNA from peas, unaware that all around them, hanging on the atrium walls, are some of the most influential images ever made of molecular biology. This is the art of Irving Geis, whose 116th birthday also happened to be October 18, a former Georgia Tech student who did more for myoglobin\u2019s street cred than anyone before him.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGeis, who died in 1997, was a pioneer whose seminal, oft-reproduced painting of a sperm whale myoglobin molecule for \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cem\u003EScientific American\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E in 1961 basically launched the field of molecular illustration, an artist whose complex and colorful depictions of an unseen living world have helped inspire and enlighten generations of students and scientists.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cWe all knew about Irving Geis,\u201d says Sheldon May, a biochemistry professor who helped start the Petit Institute and led the effort to bring Geis\u2019s work to the atrium shortly after the building opened 15 years ago. \u201cAnyone who taught biochemistry used his illustrations. He was an amazing artist, strongly influenced by Da Vinci, and he did it all in a time before computer graphics.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGeis, born in New York City in 1908, moved to Anderson, South Carolina, as a kid. He thought he wanted to be an architect, so he attended Georgia Tech from 1925 to 1927 with that in mind.\u0026nbsp; He didn\u2019t graduate from Tech, but his experience in Atlanta obviously left an impression, according to his daughter.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cMy father couldn\u2019t carry a tune and almost never sang, but he taught me the song, \u003Cem\u003EI\u2019m a Ramblin\u2019 Wreck from Georgia Tech\u003C\/em\u003E, when I was six years old,\u201d says Sandy Geis. \u201cIt was my favorite thing to sing. Can you imagine? A six-year-old kid singing, \u2018a hell of an engineer\u2019 at the top of her lungs.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGeis may have enjoyed his time at Tech, but he just wasn\u2019t bound to be an architect, and went on to earn a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania (1929) and after earning a degree in design and painting from the University of South Carolina in 1933 he moved back to New York to work as a freelance illustrator. He did a lot of work for \u003Cem\u003EFortune\u003C\/em\u003E magazine, including a drawing of the circulatory system that marked his venture into scientific illustration. \u201cHe was very proud of that. It really jumpstarted his interest in biology,\u201d Sandy Geis says.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EDuring World War II, Geis worked as chief of the graphics section of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS, the predecessor of the CIA) and later as art director for the Office of War Information. Following the war and for the rest of his life he worked as a freelance artist, and from 1948 on he shaped the genre of scientific illustration. That was the year he started contributing to \u003Cem\u003EScientific American\u003C\/em\u003E, where he produced some of the most iconic images of scientific illustration, the most famous in 1961.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cThe myoglobin painting was a landmark in his career, and in science. It was really the first illustration of the molecular world,\u201d says Sandy Geis, whose father typically spent a few weeks on a project \u2013 learning the subject, talking with the scientist writing the article, and producing an illustration. But the myoglobin watercolor painting took six months, because it takes a while to break new ground. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cThere was always a back and forth dialogue with the authors, the scientists,\u201d Sandy Geis says. \u201cBetween his photographs, and sketches, and the constant dialogue, he was able to elucidate whatever they said. It was a complicated process, and my father was such a perfectionist.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe myoglobin illustration accompanied the article by British biochemist John Kendrew, who described the structure of myoglobin, a protein found in muscle tissue, and recruited Geis to convert his physical models of myoglobin into a painting. It became the first molecule that most people ever actually saw.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cHe was the preeminent molecular illustrator,\u201d says May. \u201cHe used art to beautifully demonstrate the structure and function of molecules.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe myoglobin painting increased demand in Geis\u2019s talents. From 1963 until his death he illustrated a number of major books on biochemistry and molecular biology, including three that he co-authored with Richard Dickerson, the UCLA biochemistry professor, who had worked with Kendrew on solving the first high-resolution x-ray crystal structure of myoglobin in 1958.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cIt was never clear whether Irv illustrated my books, or I wrote Irv\u2019s captions,\u201d Dickerson wrote in the journal \u003Cem\u003EProtein Science\u003C\/em\u003E in 1997, following Geis\u2019s death. \u201cIn the end, it didn\u2019t matter; together we could do more than either could have done alone.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAccording to Dickerson, his co-author\u2019s genius wasn\u2019t in depicting a protein exactly how it looked, but drawing it in a such a way that showed how the molecule worked, an artistic process that Geis called, \u2018selective lying.\u2019 Geis, wrote Dickerson, \u201cwas very taken with the importance of using art to put across scientific concepts.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGeis also illustrated several biochemistry textbooks that Georgia Tech scientists like May and Loren Williams became familiar with.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cI\u2019d loved his work for years, but at first, I didn\u2019t know he went to Georgia Tech, until I found a copy of his obituary,\u201d says Williams, a biochemist who discussed with May the idea of bringing Geis\u2019s work to the Petit Institute building, which opened in 1999.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMay reached out to Sandy Geis, \u201ccalled her out of the blue,\u201d he says. \u0022She was very happy that we were doing something to perpetuate her father\u2019s contribution to science.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESandy Geis made her father\u0027s original art available, and what hangs on the atrium walls are actually photographic reproductions, commissioned by May before the Geis Archives were purchased by the Howard Hughes Medical institute. \u003Cbr class=\u0022Apple-style-span\u0022 \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cI\u2019m glad that his work is displayed at Georgia Tech,\u201d she says. \u201cBecause his passion was to teach, really, to influence as many scientists and students of science through the generations. And that\u2019s what he did. Two Nobel Prize winners told me personally that the books by Dickerson and Geis were a big influence for them.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EShortly after Georgia Tech acquired the reproductions in 2000, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute purchased the Geis Archives, which includes art as well as correspondence and private journals. But the reproductions in the atrium have helped give the Petit building a sense of colorful equilibrium, offsetting the massive Cell Wall, the nine-piece, 12 foot by 24 foot painting by artist \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.karenku.com\/\u0022\u003EKaren Stoutsenberger Ku\u003C\/a\u003E (typically is one of the first things anyone notices when they enter the Petit Institute atrium).\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cWhen we moved into the building, the Cell Wall was all there,\u201d May says. \u201cBut we, the biochemists, were thinking, \u2018what can we do from an artistic point of view?\u2019 The engineers at the time were all cellular oriented, and we were very molecular oriented. We wondered what we could do from a visual point of view to play up the fact that this institute brings together the molecular and the cellular, the science and the engineering. And we remembered those illustrations from the Biochemistry textbook. Of course! Irving Geis!\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIn his lifetime, Geis evolved to the point where, especially in his later years, he was an occasional scientific lecturer. It was easy for the casual student of the visual arts to confuse him as some kind of molecular scientist.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cMy father understood the science, and he understood scientists,\u201d Sandy Geis says. \u201cHe could speak their language \u2013 he was an interpreter of their language. But first and foremost, he was always an artist.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Science illustrator Irving Geis shed light on an unseen world"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EScience illustrator Irving Geis shed light on an unseen world\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Science illustrator Irving Geis shed light on an unseen world"}],"uid":"28153","created_gmt":"2014-11-17 11:56:01","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:30","author":"Jerry Grillo","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-11-17T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2014-11-17T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"346271":{"id":"346271","type":"image","title":"Irving Geis","body":null,"created":"1449245670","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:14:30","changed":"1475895068","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:08","alt":"Irving Geis","file":{"fid":"200933","name":"myoglobin-sci._american_0.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/myoglobin-sci._american_0_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/myoglobin-sci._american_0_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2451786,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/myoglobin-sci._american_0_0.jpg?itok=1-p4np4M"}},"346361":{"id":"346361","type":"image","title":"Cytochrome","body":null,"created":"1449245670","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:14:30","changed":"1475895068","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:08","alt":"Cytochrome","file":{"fid":"200937","name":"cytochrome.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/cytochrome_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/cytochrome_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":652886,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/cytochrome_0.jpg?itok=cfrqHyWq"}}},"media_ids":["346271","346361"],"groups":[{"id":"1292","name":"Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience (IBB)"}],"categories":[{"id":"42901","name":"Community"},{"id":"42921","name":"Exhibitions"}],"keywords":[{"id":"109911","name":"Irving Geis"},{"id":"109921","name":"molecular illustration"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"},{"id":"39501","name":"People and Technology"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering and Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}