UCLA molecular biologists have turned protein sequences into original compositions of classical music, an article in Science News Weekly reports.

Rie Takahashi and Jeffrey H Miller of the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics and the Molecular Biology Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, have converted genome-encoded protein sequences into musical notes to reveal auditory patterns without compromising musicality.

“We assigned a chord to each amino acid,” said Rie Takahashi, a UCLA research assistant and an award-winning, classically trained piano player. “We want to see if we can hear patterns within the music, as opposed to looking at the letters of an amino acid or protein sequence. We can listen to a protein, as opposed to just looking at it.”

A music clip of the human ThyA protein based on the single note assignment of one amino acid per musical note

The conversion, they hope will realize several goals, among them:it will help make investigating sequences by the vision impaired scientist possible, and it will attract young people into molecular genetics by using the multidisciplinary approach of fusing music and science.

A music clip of the human ThyA protein derived from the reduced 13-base note chord assignment

You can listen to additional compositions here.

The electronic version of Takahashi and Miller”s work, “Conversion of amino-acid sequence in proteins to classical music: search for auditory patterns” can be found online. An abstract can be found here.