Proteins are the building blocks of all life, creating materials as diverse as spider silk, cells, and hair, but also other countless functions from enzymes to drugs. Here we discuss a method to represent folded protein nanostructures as musical compositions. We explore different avenues of artistic creation, interpolating between human design, natural or evolutionary design, and designs from a deep recurrent network model that was trained against musical scores of known three-dimensional protein structures. Artistically, our work offers a new perspective on the limits of scientific understanding, and allows human players to interact with nanoscale phenomena, providing a tool for STEM outreach, and use of nanoscopic phenomena for artistic expression.

蛋白质是所有生命的基础，创造出各种材料，例如蜘蛛丝，细胞和头发，以及从酶到药物的其他无数功能。在这里，我们讨论一种将折叠的蛋白质纳米结构表示为音乐作品的方法。我们探索艺术创作的不同途径，在人类设计，自然设计或进化设计之间进行插值，以及根据针对已知的三维蛋白质结构的乐谱进行训练的深层循环网络模型进行设计。从艺术上讲，我们的工作为科学理解的局限性提供了新的视角，并使人类参与者能够与纳米级现象互动，为STEM推广提供工具，并利用纳米级现象进行艺术表达。