The research paper we recently drafted has been accepted for publication in a scientific journal! The paper reports the protein design work of Foldit players from the past 6 years, and will be published in the coming weeks.
Scientific journals like to print each issue with a unique cover, usually with flashy art that describes some of the research in the issue. We'd like to submit artwork that could be used on the journal cover when our paper is published, and we want your help!
If you have an idea for a journal cover related to protein design in Foldit, please share it with us! The ideal artwork should be eye-catching, and communicate relevant themes like citizen science, protein design, creativity, and/or computer games. Please send us any art, as a high-resolution image file, to foldit.publications@gmail.com before April 3 at 23:59 GMT.
Since the journal only allows a handful of submissions, the Foldit team will select favorites to be submitted to the journal as possible cover art.
How about a cartoon with at least three different people at their computers with thought clouds over their heads that contain various protein structure pictures from the paper (like in Fig.1F of foldit_design_paper_draft.pdf for example). Maybe show the Blueprint Tool and Rama Map in some of the clouds. The people could be of different ages & genders from all over the world. The computers could be a laptop and 2 different desktop styles, each with a different kind of mouse. Some people could look artsy, others more techy, & others like gamers.
I agree that the appearance is more important than the scientific validity for the cover illustration, but if I recall correctly, all the designs in the paper were monomers. I think readers will be upset if the cover art shows multi-monomer complexes while the paper only discusses monomers.
The dot plots of score vs. RMSD(?) and the UV/Vis(?) spectrum plots in the paper are kind of pretty. Perhaps one of each of these on the cover would look nice. If any of our designed proteins yield pretty crystals or diffraction patterns, maybe you could include pictures of them in the cover art as well.
At the top could be players at their computers with a big thought cloud over their heads showing various pretty designs from the paper & the Rama Map & Blueprint Tool. Then there could be a series of arrows coming down the left side & going counterclockwise to the lower right corner. Between these arrows are images for a design that worked really well. There could be an energy vs rmsd plot, then a UV/Vis plot, then a picture of some crystals, then a crystallography pattern, then a picture from an electron density puzzle, and finally the structure from the Protein Data Base aligned with the originally designed structure.
For the images of the best design in the above paragraph,
instead of enclosing them in thought clouds, enclose them
in comic-book-like explosions (like ones that say "POW"
when Batman punches the Joker). These explosions &
their enclosed images could get bigger as they approach
the lower right corner of the cover art.
For other designs that haven't passed all the tests yet,
use smaller images & enclose them in thought clouds.
