At the NJ Science Olympiad, 24 high schools teams demonstrated their knowledge of proteins shown to have reprogrammed adult cells into pluripotent stem cells.

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The team from J.P. Stevens High School (Edison): Andy Shi, Joet Bagga, and Sam Zhang.

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Jmol was used to build models onsite.

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The RCSB PDB judges provided feedback to the students.


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Points were awarded for "creative additions" that helped tell the story of the protein.

Teams submitted hand-built 3D models of the zinc finger protein found in PDB entry 2wbu on the morning of the event. The models represented the protein backbone, with additional points awarded for structures with details that highlighted important parts of the structure (such as zinc atoms).

During the event itself, the students quickly built a model of homeobox protein Nanog (PDB ID 2kt0) and answered questions on a written exam. Teams used the Molecule of the Month, Jmol, and other resources to help prepare for this event.

RCSB PDB team members judged this competition, and met with teams at the end of the day to discuss results.

Congratulations to all participating teams--there were many great models, abstracts, and responses to the written exam. Several models received perfect scores, and the challenging exam had many strong responses. Places 4-6 were decided by tiebreak questions.

Top Protein Modeling Results

The final results and a video demonstrating how models are built for this competition are available at education.pdb.org.

Special thanks to our judges from the RCSB PDB (Buvaneswari Narayanan, Chenghua Shao and event organizer Christine Zardecki), the NJ Science Olympiad organizers, and to the MSOE Center for BioMolecular Modeling for the design of this event.

Questions about the NJ Science Olympiad Protein Modeling trial event should be sent to [email protected].

For protein modeling tips and news of interest to students and educators, follow us on twitter@buildmodels.