Students who are born with or develop severe visual impairments face challenges in obtaining a chemical education. These types of students are the most underrepresented minority group in the molecular sciences. Conventional methods of helping visually impaired students understand molecular structure and shape rely on tactile, hand-based models. The oral sensory system--the mouth--has been overlooked as a channel for helping blind students visualize molecular structure. This talk will discuss our patented method of fabricating bite-size gummy models of folded proteins. The models are derived from the X-ray crystal structure or NMR structure deposited in the Protein Data Bank and are atomically accurate renderings. The identity of the protein, or its charge or conformation in the case of allosteric proteins, can be encoded with flavor. As a proof of concept, we test the methodlogy on a single survivior of bilateral retinoblastoma.

Harnessing oral and gustatory senses for the chemical education of students with visual impairments.

2019 Spring National Meeting

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