CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – A researcher at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology has won first place in the Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge sponsored by Science magazine and the National Science Foundation.
The computer-generated illustration by Emad Tajkhorshid (pronounced uh-MOD tazh-CORE-shid) depicts water molecules being transported through cell membranes. The illustration is in the Sept. 24 issue of the magazine and on its Web site and the NSF Web site.
The winning image, based on the research of Tajkhorshid, group director Klaus Schulten and others, has been the subject of numerous papers and articles since its publication in Science in 2002.
Tajkhorshid’s entry was competing with entries from fields such as astronomy, which often produce spectacular images that capture the popular imagination more than research into molecular structures.
“We really didn’t think we had a very good chance,” Tajkhorshid said. “Of course I am very excited and very happy.”
Tajkhorshid’s illustration was produced using VMD, a program created over several years by the theoretical and computational biophysics group at the institute.
The challenge “is designed to recognize outstanding achievements by scientists, engineers, visualization specialists, and artists in the use of visual media to promote understanding of research results and scientific phenomena,” according to the NSF.
The Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research institute devoted to basic research in the physical sciences, computation, engineering, biology, behavior and cognition.
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