TERT · Meander

The enzyme that rebuilds the ends of chromosomes: off in most of your cells, back on in most cancers.

TERT is the catalytic core of telomerase, the enzyme that rebuilds the repeats a chromosome loses every time it divides.

Most adult cells switch it off, so their telomeres shorten with each division, a countdown that limits how many times a cell can copy itself. Around nine in ten cancers switch it back on, buying the tumour the endless division healthy cells are denied. The same enzyme, on or off, draws the line between mortal and immortal.

TERT rebuilds the ends a chromosome loses each time it divides; here the enzyme is unwound in turn, its own 3,567-base coding sequence traced off the double helix as a single meandering line across the sheet.

Provenance

The coding sequence of TERT, transcript ENST00000922986 on the GRCh38 assembly, retrieved from Ensembl (EMBL-EBI).

Materials

Archival giclée print on fine-art paper, a faithful digital reproduction of a pen-plotted work. Each print ships with a signed data-provenance insert card.

Included

• One archival giclée print (unframed)
• Signed data-provenance insert card
• Care instructions

Studio

Genetics of Design is a data art studio that uses pen plotting as its medium. Each piece begins with a public record, whether road networks, genomes, star catalogs, or species data, translated through custom code into composition, density, and line, and published alongside the provenance of the data it came from.