This is blood. The stuff of life – beautifully captured by molecular biology professor, David S. Goodsell. He writes:
This illustration shows a cross-section through the blood, with blood serum in the upper half and a red blood cell in the lower half. In the serum, look for Y-shaped antibodies, long thin fibrinogen molecules (in light red) and many small albumin proteins. The large UFO-shaped objects are low density lipoprotein and the six-armed protein is complement C1. The red blood cell is filled with hemoglobin, in red. The cell wall, in purple, is braced on the inner surface by long spectrin chains connected at one end to a small segment of actin filament.
According to Goodsell’s Web site, he uses “a combination of hand-drawn and computer graphics illustrations to reveal the invisible world of molecules inside cells.”
Visit his Web site for his colorful depiction of a wide range of cells. He’s also the author of the book The Machinery of Life, according to io9.
Image © David S. Goodsell 2000.
