9 November 15

Today's occasion comes from my Honors Seminar class (for freshmen), where we are talking about "DNA art." Our textbook for the class is The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, focusing on how some cancerous cells from Henrietta Lacks (1920-1951+) have the peculiar property of neverending replication. At one point in the story, Henrietta's daughter is surprised by the beautiful artwork that can be created from DNA images and the research to understand them. My tie's design is based on the gel electrophoresis plates that helped reveal the sequence of peptides (guanine-cytosine and adenine-thymine) in the double helix. And it's also a truly beautiful tie.