Holiday Ornaments

2025 Holiday Ornament

Your immune system’s most iconic defender, the antibody, bends and flexes its Y-shaped arms to recognize antigens—foreign molecules from bacteria, viruses, and other pathogens. Each arm ends in a binding site formed by paired immunoglobulin folds, creating an exquisite molecular handshake between antibody and antigen.
 
The elegant 3D model reflects the form elucidated in the 1960s by Rodney Porter and Gerald Edelman, a discovery that reshaped immunology.
 
For more on how antibodies support adaptive immunity, visit our blog or explore the Cell Modeling Kit©.

Idealized Human IgG Model by Eduardo A. Padlan based on 21G2.pdb and 1FC2.pdb
1 angstrom = 0.65mm

2024 Holiday Ornament

tRNA folds into this beautiful 3D structure before carrying amino acids to ribosomes for protein synthesis. It even forms A-U and G-C base pairs! This elegant structure differs greatly from the cloverleaf structure commonly shown online or in textbooks. For more information on tRNA’s role in protein synthesis, see our blog post or Flow of Genetic Information Kit© Resources.

Based on 4tna.pdb
1 angstrom – 1.1mm