<input type="checkbox" id="egg" style="display:none;"><label for="egg" class="easter-label"></label> **I am a medical professional with over 5 years of experience in lab medicine and pharmacy.** <iframe src="https://3dproteinimaging.com/protein-imager/?projectId=A1gyzuA2R0QEk1iXjRsK&isUserProject=1&gui=transparent&animate=spin" width="100%" height="300" loading="lazy"></iframe> I'm also a former Medical Lab Assistant and current Registered Pharmacy Technician with expectations to advance my talent as a **Certified Pharmacy Technician** ([CPhT](https://ptcb.org/credentials/certification/certified-pharmacy-technician)). Between college and work you can find me pulling a journal paper to get lost in, sharing a fire with friends, taking on a hard-to-beat hike, and biking in the city. # Science Visualization Combining art with data has been deeply satisfying to help decipher parts of our unseeable biology. I turn to **science visualization** to connect the dots behind experimental data from researchers worldwide in order to make it accessible and accurate. My goal is to represent the natural world as it actually appears at scales invisible to the eye. Here, truly unseeable things are up and dancing to make it all work! > ### Flash-freezing life's nanometer toolkit to cast its shadow by electron beam is called cryo-electron microscopy ([cryo-EM](https://youtu.be/qc2PbmI5qMw?si=HOvVoLZL2QZKv-PD)) and I'm set to lead a career in solving the core architecture of cells. > > To me developing the skills necessary to link a cell's shape with their success globally will be a quarter-century long problem for me to master. > > This means diving deep into three pillars of life: > - **Rehumanizing Illness**<br>Eliminating highly incident and prevalent disease without stigma > - **Boosting World Ecology**<br>Developing long-term strategies for environmental disasters > - **Realizing Human Welfare**<br>Cultivating a reverent life with emphasis on its intricacies <br> By creating visualizations that get to the point across without rolling up your sleeves I help advance transparency and reproducibility in the natural sciences.^[Wilkinson MD, Dumontier M, Aalbersberg IJ, Appleton G, Axton M, Baak A, Blomberg N, Boiten JW, da Silva Santos LB, Bourne PE, Bouwman J. The FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship. Scientific data. 2016 Mar 15;3(1):1-9. doi: 10.1038/sdata.2016.18] Learning new ways to spot patterns in real world data should be accessible to anyone, regardless of who they are. Specifically, much of my work focuses on how proteins form incredible shapes and band together to sustain processes that underlie all life.^[Bustamante C. Molecular machines one molecule at a time. Protein science: a publication of the Protein Society. 2017 Jun 20;26(7):1245. doi: 10.1002/pro.3205] # Insulin and Insulin Hexagons To better understand the organization of human insulin when matched with zinc and calcium atoms I created the figure below: ![[lemasterdj_insulin_storage_figure.png]] Before insulin can work we need to understand that **active insulin**, the insulin we know that regulates our blood sugar, is actually two smaller molecules: **insulin A-chain** and **insulin B-chain**, chemically bonded together. ##### A-chain + B-chain = Insulin. Now What? While a yummy meal might not have leftovers our pancreas always has extra insulin leftovers. Think of it as a logistical problem: mobilize insulin for food and store it ready-to-go the next time we eat. This where our pancreas shines. The pancreas has **pancreatic beta-cells** that sandwich two identical insulin molecules as **insulin dimers**. After this, these beta-cells remove the water clinging to the dimers to allow them to finally click together as one large, 6-piece storage form, called **insulin hexamers**. Because a hexamer is an efficient packing pattern like honeycombs in a beehive, they can be rapidly disassembled by splitting into 3 dimers and further into 6 separate active insulin molecules on-the-spot. ##### Why Insulin? Obtaining data from the RCSB Protein Data Bank^[Berman HM, Burley SK. Protein Data Bank (PDB): Fifty-three years young and having a transformative impact on science and society. Quarterly reviews of biophysics. 2025 Jan;58:e9. doi: 10.1017/S0033583525000034] I shared this example to visualize how cell's organize what's on the inside to assume different functions. Giving a deeper context to data by eye that's valuable for educational, translational, and clinical communication has been a truly exciting endeavor.^[Ayan E, Engilberge S, Yokoi S, Orlans J, de Sanctis D, Basu S, Rive‐Mathieu E, Kepceoglu A, Mitsutake A, Demirci H. Triple Calcium Binding Stoichiometry in the Monoclinic Crystal Form of Protracted Insulin. Small Structures. 2025 Dec;6(12):e202500398. doi: 10.1002/sstr.202500398] # Contact Got a burning question? Think we'd work well together? Reach out. - **[email protected]** - [**(614) 604-2565**](tel:6146042565) - [**LinkedIn**](https://linkedin.com/in/lemasterdj) - [**ORCID**](https://orcid.org/0009-0000-3548-3303) - [**Google Scholar**](https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NX8d1_EAAAAJ) - [**Zotero Library**](https://www.zotero.org/lemasterdj/item-list) - [**Instagram**](https://instagram.com/lemasterdj) **David LeMaster** Visualizing life's nano-toolkit.