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West Windsor Plainsboro HS North with their prebuilt model of hemagglutinin.

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Teams had to quickly build a neuraminidase model using Jmol

At an event that had many impressive and creative models of hemagglutinin and neuraminidase, the team from West Windsor Plainsboro High School North came in first place in protein modeling at the 2010 New Jersey Science Olympiad (NJSO).

At this competitive event, West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South came in second, and New Providence High School came in third out of 24 schools from across the Garden State.

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The models were carefully judged by RCSB PDB staff

Teams submitted their hand-built 3D models of a hemagglutinin protein with  an abstract to be judged by staff from the RCSB PDB. Teams enhanced their models with different features to help tell hemagglutinin's story.  At the competition, teams quickly built a model of a selected region of neuraminidase using Jmol and completed a written exam with questions about protein structure and influenza. Teams used the Molecule of the Month and other RCSB PDB resources to help prepare for this event.

Congratulations to all participating teams--there were many great models, abstracts, and responses to the written exam. The final results and a video demonstrating how models are built for this competition are available at education.pdb.org. Questions about the NJ Science Olympiad Protein Modeling trial event should be sent to [email protected].

Special thanks to our judges from the RCSB PDB (Batsal Devkota, Sutapa Ghosh, Christine Zardecki (Event Supervisor) and Jing Zhou), the NJ Science Olympiad organizers, and to the MSOE Center for BioMolecular Modeling for the design of this event.