Protein Modeling C

[Phenylethylamine]

I guess this could be a serious problem in states with multiples regionals that do matter. In wisconsin, I dont think any of the tests were modified. The state supervisor was a hard grader though.

Isn't the state supervisor the national event supervisor in Wisconsin?

It would make sense, given that the event is run by the Milwaukee School of Engineering.

[Press_Tilty]

I have a question. Would you say the rules limit all of your explanations and everything to the 3" x 5" card?

I saw a few at State that had other diagrams on stuff on the bottom of their box. It obviously doesn't matter anymore, but we had been operating on the assumption that you had to squeeze everything you wanted to say onto that one card, front and back. Has everyone else been thinking that?

[Dragonshark]

I guess this could be a serious problem in states with multiples regionals that do matter. In wisconsin, I dont think any of the tests were modified. The state supervisor was a hard grader though.

Isn't the state supervisor the national event supervisor in Wisconsin?

It would make sense, given that the event is run by the Milwaukee School of Engineering.

It didn't look like it was the national supervisor for some reason. (the state supervisor was a bit too old... and also had a pair of "this event is over" sunglasses :p)

I have a question. Would you say the rules limit all of your explanations and everything to the 3" x 5" card?

I saw a few at State that had other diagrams on stuff on the bottom of their box. It obviously doesn't matter anymore, but we had been operating on the assumption that you had to squeeze everything you wanted to say onto that one card, front and back. Has everyone else been thinking that?

In general, make sure your explanations are as concise as possible, meaning that they all fit onto the card. Some supervisors will accept explanations beyond the notecard, but others probably won't (according to the national supervisor - I had the chance to ask her some questions).

[Infinity Flat]

I have a question. Would you say the rules limit all of your explanations and everything to the 3" x 5" card?

I saw a few at State that had other diagrams on stuff on the bottom of their box. It obviously doesn't matter anymore, but we had been operating on the assumption that you had to squeeze everything you wanted to say onto that one card, front and back. Has everyone else been thinking that?

I would assume that the diagrams fall under the category of "creative additions." At nationals last year there were quite a few among the top teams that had accompanying posters, if I remember correctly.

[Press_Tilty]

See, if I were a judge, I would interpret "creative additions" as representations of some molecular structure added to the protein itself.

[Dragonshark]

See, if I were a judge, I would interpret "creative additions" as representations of some molecular structure added to the protein itself.

That's what I also think. The 3-fold displays, posters, diagrams, walls of text, etc are probably mainly used to appeal to the subjective nature of the scoring process by making everything look nice, while all of the explanations are still on the notecard.

[Steelfoam]

I guess this could be a serious problem in states with multiples regionals that do matter. In wisconsin, I dont think any of the tests were modified. The state supervisor was a hard grader though.

Isn't the state supervisor the national event supervisor in Wisconsin?

It would make sense, given that the event is run by the Milwaukee School of Engineering.

No, the person who was at the Wisconsin State tournament was not the national event supervisor. I don't think you get any extra points for posters, however it might help explain your model more?

[Steelfoam]

Sorry for posting twice in a row but, does anyone know what part or parts of MHC we are supposed to model for the national onsite?

[TheWiseGirl]

Sorry for posting twice in a row but, does anyone know what part or parts of MHC we are supposed to model for the national onsite?

The file is 1hsa.pdb; of course, they won't let us know what section we're modeling until the actual competition.

As for the discussion on creative additions, the goal of the case was to show the bigger picture of the protein. Depending on the judge, they may or may not give you points for it. But hey, if it doesn't hurt then why not? Posters are a little more iffy...

[runpengliu]

1. At Nationals, is it likely there will dock points based on whether your helices are 3_10?

2. Do they count Cys285 and His237 as TWO different creative additions if I explained the role of each residue separately on my note card? (I'm lazy-- trying to get as many free points as possible haha )

3. Would coloring the H-bonds responsible for the dimerization of Chain A and B count as "creative additions" if I explained why those are important?

4. Will it count as a creative addition if I attach something to the active site and just say on my note card that it's the Asp-x-x-Asp recognition site. Or does it have to be more detailed (like part of a real protein that gets cleaved by caspase-3) to receive credit

As you see, my team will probably not place that high at nationals -- so help would be appreciated answering my lazy-bum questions.

[Phenylethylamine]

1. At Nationals, is it likely there will dock points based on whether your helices are 3_10?

You should try to make sure that your helices always have the right number of turns, as this is definitely something that appears on the rubric (or, at least, has appeared on the rubric in past years), but you do not have to mark them separately as 3/10 helices – nowhere in the event has the phrase "3/10 helices" ever been mentioned, and there's no way to distinguish them in the older version of Jmol they use for the build environments.

2. Do they count Cys285 and His237 as TWO different creative additions if I explained the role of each residue separately on my note card? (I'm lazy-- trying to get as many free points as possible haha )

Think of it this way: if a judge is looking at each of them as a separate creative addition, you're likely to get fewer points for each of them, because they're not as good creative additions separately as together. Basically, just add a bunch of stuff to your model and explain it on your card; don't worry about delineating what constitutes "one creative addition".

3. Would coloring the H-bonds responsible for the dimerization of Chain A and B count as "creative additions" if I explained why those are important?

If it's important to the relationship between structure and function in caspase-3, and you explain why, it counts as a creative addition. Whether you get points for it is another story; that depends on whether the judge can follow your explanation and agrees that yes, what you've shown is important.

4. Will it count as a creative addition if I attach something to the active site and just say on my note card that it's the Asp-x-x-Asp recognition site. Or does it have to be more detailed (like part of a real protein that gets cleaved by caspase-3) to receive credit

As far as most judges are concerned, it does not have to be incredibly detailed to receive credit (and unfortunately, some do not even give more credit for adding more detail). I don't know what the Nationals judges will have to say on this issue. In general, more detail = more points, but I have seen exceptions to this rule, with less detailed models getting more points (presumably because they showed the big-picture idea more clearly).

[scm424]

Any idea what next year's pre-build protein will be? When is the earliest that that info is released?

[quizbowl]

Any idea what next year's pre-build protein will be? When is the earliest that that info is released?

Protein isn't slated to be an event in the 2012-2013 season.

[TheWiseGirl]

Any idea what next year's pre-build protein will be? When is the earliest that that info is released?

Protein isn't slated to be an event in the 2012-2013 season.

MEH, I'm so sad about that!

[Dragonshark]

I uploaded some pictures of my prebuild to the image gallery, just in case anyone's interested. These were taken before I made some last-minute additions to it at States, so it's not the finished product, but it's mostly finished.