WZProtein: A Molecular Visualization Web-Based Platform for Educational and Research Purposes

Students and researchers that study biological mechanisms between different molecules find it difficult to make sense of interactions at hand without a proper visual understanding of each molecule’s structure. Currently, UIC does not have its own web-based platform for molecular visualization that is updated by students, for students. WZProtein is designed to give our targeted audience easy access to interactive 3D structures of any preferred molecule available in the Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics Protein Data Bank (RCSB PDB). Upon a simple search, the user’s preferred molecular data file is retrieved from the RCSB archive. The file is then converted into an interactive rendering of the molecule and displayed in an internet browser window. By using a combination of compatible internal html, CSS, JavaScript, and Python code, our goal is accomplished without the need for any software download on the user’s end. To ensure the least intimidating user experience, our site features navigation tabs, a help page with both video and text tutorials, as well as a detailed guide to navigate the current website’s open source repository for future project improvements.