Description

The Masters Research Project is a core component of the Master of Science in Biomedical Communications program at the University of Toronto. This project involves research into visual communication of biomedical topics and the creation of a multimedia asset. A full-motion animation was created to introduce upper-year undergraduate students and non-specialist scientists to epitranscriptomics and the molecular mechanisms of memory formation.

Epitranscriptomics is a newly discovered topic in molecular biology which may provide insights into how memory formation works in mammalian brains. However, memory formation and epitranscriptomics are highly dynamic and complex. As such, there are several visual constraints inherent to understanding these processes.

• Context must be maintained across several spatial and temporal levels

• Complex steps must be presented in a way that does not exhaust working memory

• Several aspects of these processes are inferred from experimental evidence, and are, therefore, impossible to directly observe.

These constraints are shared by many biomolecular processes. As such, solving these constraints has the potential to contribute new methods of communicating complex, dynamic concepts in biomedical visualization.

Year

2022-2023

Tools

Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premier Pro, Duik Ángela, ZBrush, Autodesk Maya, UCSF Chimera, Visual Molecular Dynamics, Adobe Audition, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe Media Encoder.

Media

2D/3D animation

Clients

BMC Supervisor: Derek Ng
Content Advisor: Brandon Walters

Audience

Upper-year undergraduate students and nonspecialist scientists.

Process

Research & Conceptualization

The project began with familiarizing myself with the science behind epitranscriptomics and memory formation, as well as understanding where the communication gaps were for teaching this topic to the intended audience. This stage of the project involved:

• Discussions with content advisor, Brandon Walters,

• Evaluating lecture recordings from the University of Toronto undergraduate special topics course, Molecular Mechanisms of Memory formation,

• Conducting a literature review of research related to epitranscriptomics, memory formation, and the communication of similar topics to similar audiences,

• Creating a media audit of existing audiovisual materials which share similar topics and/or communication restraints.

A project proposal as well as the following concept art was presented to my advisory committee and feedback was obtained which informed the next stages of the project.

Pre-Production

I started by creating an initial script and a storyboard which were both presented to my advisory committee and adjusted based on iterative feedback. Once approved, an animatic was created to get an idea of timing, needed assets, framing, and a rough idea of how each element would be animated.

Production

One of the major elements created were anthropomorphized characters for the three main proteins involved in the regulation of epitranscriptomics, FTO, Mettl3/14, and FMRP. Each character was designed and constructed based on data from the RSCB Protein Database. These characters were designed with the intent to add ‘agency’ to these proteins to make them more salient and memorable.

More coming soon…

References

• Leonetti, A. M., Ramnaraign, F. O., Holm, S., & Walters, B. J. (2020). An emerging role of m6A
  in memory: A case study for translational priming. International Journal of Molecular
  Sciences, 21(20), 7447. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms21207447

• Walters, B. J., Mercaldo, V., Gillon, C. J., Yip, M., Neve, R. L., Boyce, F. M., Frankland, P. W., &
  Josselyn, S. A. (2017). The role of the RNA demethylase FTO (fat mass and obesity
  associated) and mRNA methylation in hippocampal memory formation.
  Neuropsychopharmacology, 42, 1502-1510. https://doi.org/10.1038/npp.2017.31

• PDB IDs:
  5TEY: Human METTL3-METTL14 complex
  5DAB: Crystal structure of FTO-IN115