The Autodesk Gallery at One Market in San Francisco celebrates design — the process of taking a great idea and turning it into a reality. With about 60 different exhibits regularly on display that showcase the innovative work of Autodesk customers, the gallery illustrates the role technology plays in great design and engineering.
Even though we are a software company, our gallery has a collection of exhibits related to life sciences. Yes, digital tools are used in life sciences just like they are when making a place, a thing, or a piece of media (TV show, commercial, movie, or video game).
People
- Autodesk BioNano Research // more
Software
- Autodesk Molecule Viewer // more
Here is how our gallery team described this exhibit.
When you think of design, you may think of fashion, cars, architecture, products, or video games. But what you may not realize is that there is a lot of exciting design applications happening at the molecular level, too.
Biology is a quickly becoming a powerful design space where, for example, DNA can be programmed to create complex machines and bacteria can be engineered to create substances that we need (e.g., insulin). But in life sciences, biological researchers, designers, and engineers work with molecular and nanostructures at a scale completely unviewable to the human eye, so there's a huge need to visualize that data.
The Autodesk Bio/Nano Research group is helping to fill that need with its Molecule Viewer, a Web-based 3D visualization tool that allows you to view large and multi-scale biological data. Using the power of cloud technology and data provided by the RCSB Protein Data Bank, the Molecule Viewer graphs protein data in various representations and different color schemes, which microscopes can't do. This glimpse into the unseen world of the molecular machines and processes that run our bodies can aid scientists with research, therapeutics, education, and more.
Creating tools like the Molecule Viewer is just a stepping stone for a wide range of applications within biology and biomedical research. The Bio/Nano Research Group is taking the knowledge gained from Autodesk's 30 years of creating design software for multiple industries and applying it to the fields of biology and nanotechnology. The goal is to knock down the barriers for exploration and affect the world in a positive way.
Many of you may recall when we conducted a technology preview of the Molecule Viewer to gather feedback on the idea of applying CAD technology to the realm of biology and medicine. Your feedback helped shape the application of this technology in a big way.
The Autodesk Gallery in San Francisco is open to the public on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm. There is a guided tour on Wednesdays at 12:30 pm and a self-guided audio tour available anytime. Admission is free. Visit us.
Observing the very small is alive in the lab.