Crystallography as Art

The research of Jun-yong Choe, PhD, Chicago Medical School associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, is featured in the December issue of Academic Medicine. His stunning ribbon diagram of the first three-dimensional structure of a true glucose transporter, achieved through protein crystallography, appears on the journal's cover.

"What drives my research is trying to understand how glucose, an essential source of both energy and carbon for living organisms, is transported inside cells, Dr. Choe writes in his artist's statement. “Alterations of this process play a key role in diabetes and cancer.”