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PDB to 3D Print

One-click conversion from any PDB ID or uploaded structure file to a printable, mesh-repaired 3D file — with a short scientific 'structure card' to go with it.

  • Lead: ,
  • Theme: Structural biology & outreach
  • Repo:

Team

Why this project

Immediately visual, broadly understandable, and genuinely useful for education, outreach, lab communication, and rapid prototyping. It sits at the intersection of structural biology, geometry processing, and scientific communication — and a BambuLab P2S printer will be on site to print the best results live.

What a team could build in one day

A small web app or CLI that:

  • Fetches a structure from the PDB or accepts an upload.
  • Generates one or two print-friendly geometry styles (e.g. surface mesh or stylized backbone) with sane defaults for thickness, scale, and stability.
  • Repairs fragile geometry and exports STL, OBJ, or 3MF.
  • Renders a preview image.
  • Produces a short structure card describing the molecule and the steps taken to make it printable.

The minimum viable demo is one-click conversion for a small set of example structures, plus a downloadable print-ready file.

How Claude and AWS help

  • Claude to scaffold the parsing/export workflow, write per-structure explanatory text, and propose labeling or domain-highlight ideas.
  • AWS for preview rendering, queueing conversions, and batch generation across small curated structure collections.

Stretch directions

  • Multicolor or multipart models for assembly.
  • Auto-highlight binding pockets or domains.
  • Suggest the best print orientation.
  • Batch-convert a curated library for teaching or outreach.