Join us at Conferences Nationwide this Fall!

Visit 3DMD at conferences this fall to transform your science teaching and empower your students to drive their own sensemaking! Join us at national conferences like NSTA Kansas City and NABT Baltimore and at state conferences like ASTA and STANYS. Join us at a conference to:

• Attend our interactive sessions - from letting water molecules ripple through your fingers to creating an action potential, you'll discover how students can harness the power of modeling.
• Connect with a community of educators to share ideas and explore concepts like protein folding, properties of water and cell membranes, the flow of genetic information and more. 
• Get hands-on with engaging interactive kits and dynamic 3D printed models to see how modeling fosters student learning. 

You can find updated information on the booth and session schedule for each conference on the Conferences page of our website. We look forward to seeing you!

Get Started with SMART Teams!

Want to start your SMART Team but not sure where to begin? Then, visit the Getting Started page to discover how to create a team at your school! Register your team(s). Then, you will have access to videos, publications, and guides assembled by our SMART Teams Coordinator, Mark "Arnie" Arnholt. Whether you are new to the program or have led SMART Teams in the past, these resources will start your team on the path of protein discovery!

Science Spotlight

Celiac Disease Awareness Day is September 13. To help spread awareness of the disorder, we wanted to spotlight George D. Snell, PhD, who worked in the field of immunogenetics at the Jackson Laboratory. He was best known for discovering the major histocompatibility complex (MHC), a protein found on the surface of cells that helps the body differentiate between self and non-self. He shared the 1980 Nobel prize with Baruj Benacerraf and Jean Dausset for their discoveries regarding the genetically determined structures on the cell surface that control immune responses. MHCs, like HLA-DQ2, are thought to have some effect on the severity of autoimmune disorders like Celiac Disease. Dr. Snell passed away in 1996. 

3DMD History

Fun Fact! The first model that we used the process of injection molding to create was an MHC model. You can see that this model is featured with half of its original mold below. This mold was developed so many years ago that 3D printing was still widely known as "rapid prototyping." 

Model Celiac Disease with Your Students

According to the Michigan Medicine Laboratories, nearly 90% of patients with Celiac Disease express the HLA-DQ2 molecules, with the remainder expressing the HLA-DQ8 molecule. Using the Chromosome Connections Kit^©, you can help your students understand the correlation between Celiac Disease and HLA-DQ2. HLA-DQ2 is found on the q arm of chromosome 6. Help your students understand the relationship between genes and chromosomes by constructing a model of chromosome six and expanding the chromosome with the 4X Scaling Graphics and nucleotides to show the location of different HLA MHC complexes, especially HLA-DQ.

Due to the length of the sequence, you may want to provide your students with a shorter sample sequence to model.