In honor of National Pasta Day, join C-GEM as we build polymers out of pasta!
C-GEM scientists developed a kid-friendly activity to demonstrate how the sequence of amino acids or other monomers affects the folded structure and properties of a protein. The idea came from graduate student Noah Hamlish, who was looking for an engaging way to communicate his research to kids. Scientists often use the analogy of beads on a string to talk about different types of polymers, but the analogy doesn’t capture the various properties of amino acids and how these properties can affect the final function of a protein.
Pasta-mers involves stringing pasta of various shapes and sizes onto pipe cleaner and folding it to achieve different goals. Learn more about Pasta-mers by downloading our guide here: