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May 3, 2002

COLLEGE STATION – Intricate oak, mesquite, pine carvings. Not what one would expect to find in a biochemistry lab.

"This is a model of the heart of vitamin B12," said biochemist Edgar Meyer, holding a polished piece of carved mesquite. "B12 was responsible for curing a deadly disease – pernicious anemia."

He should know. In his early career, Meyer studied and researched in a Swiss lab that was part of the team that synthesized vitamin B12. But that was his lab coat and test tube days.

Now, Meyer runs his own highly technical lab at the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station replete with computers to view molecules 3-dimensionally, yet the scientist is as likely to be found with shop apron and sandpaper. He created "molecular sculpturing" by linking a milling machine to his computer data to carve wooden sculptures of molecules that otherwise most people would never see.

"I've spent 30 years of life looking at molecular structures with computer graphics," Meyer recalled in his lab. "I'd see views that were absolutely striking in beauty. But most people have trouble understanding molecules, because they are too difficult to visualize.

"Seeing something flat on paper is not the same as having something in your hand. You can feel with your hands," he said.

The biochemist admits that mixing art with science is not an original idea. But it has been centuries since the two have been considered commonly intertwined among the greats in each profession.

For the most part, science and art remain unlinked among the nation's largest research grantors, though both the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts recognize the importance of cooperative efforts.

"Some grants under some funding areas that lend themselves to that," said Bill Noxon, National Science Foundation public affairs specialist. "I know of some individual scientists. For example, one guy was a dancer and now is a noted scientist. He says you have to use the creativity of art and the discipline science to choreograph science.

"The two (arts and science) do have a relationship, but we don't have a formal program for it," Noxon said of the NSF.

The National Endowment for the Arts Web site (http://arts.endow.gov/) notes the importance of the two areas and suggest artists search among more than 830 NSF grants that include the keywords "arts, music, dance and photography."

"Bridging that gap is a problem because often science and the humanities speak different languages and face different directions," added Meyer, who teaches a course that aims to show young scientists the importance of art. "They may be looking at the same world, but it isn't always obvious that there is a lot in common."

Meyers has been funded by NSF to create a lab for molecular models and sculptures. Examples of previous work can be found at http://www.tamu.edu/biograph/acs-models.htm

Science hasn't taken a back seat in Meyer's lab; it's just that creativity has been allowed a front seat alongside basic, biochemical research. His lab is known for exploring those things that others may have overlooked: snake venom's relation to potential cancer treatment; an enzyme in the gut of termites that enables the insects to digest wood.

"The age we live in is certainly one of science and technology. The expansion and explosion of science and technology is very important," Meyer stressed. "But if you go back to the masters -- the Dutch masters, the Florentine Renaissance artists, Michaelangelo, Leonardo daVinci – these were sincere scientists. They knew how to mix their pigments. They knew their pigments' chemistry ... so paintings would last for centuries," he noted.

"But today just because of divisions between disciplines and because we live very busy lives, people don't always have time to look at the relationships between art and science that are sometimes obvious and sometimes hidden," he said. "That is my attempt – to create objects that will stand on their own in terms with their aesthetic appeal but have deep scientific significance."

Part hobby, part teaching is how Meyer categorizes molecular sculpturing. But he also believes the technique helps his research.

"From my own experience, the scientific mind is more creative when it is balanced and has an artistic aspect, right-brain-left-brain type interactions," Meyer said. "So, I try to make my science better by doing something artistic."

Meyer hopes eventually to be represented in galleries and museums as a new form of sculpture. For starters, his work will be exhibited at the Benz Gallery in the Texas A&M University Forest and Horticultural Sciences Building from May-July, and several also are on exhibit at the Bryan-College Station Arts Council Gallery.

"There are thousands, millions of molecules, so I pick those that have some type of scientific significance but also some aesthetic appeal, that have some beauty in them," he said. "I had it in me to try to describe to others the beauty that I see in molecules."