Alpha-hemolysin
File sealed
The detectives are still writing this one up. The poster and the facts are below; the film and the interrogation room open soon.
Booking photographs
The suspect, from its real atomic coordinates. Drag to turn it. Height chart in nanometers, a line every 2 nm. A nose is about five million times longer.
Rap sheet
- Answers to
- Alpha-hemolysin, or αHL to nanopore people.
- Height
- 10.5 nm, cap up, stem down.
- Weight
- 390 zeptograms
- Build
- Seven identical parts that find each other and make a mushroom.
- Habits
- Lands on a membrane and punches a hole straight through.
- Known for
- A 1.4 nm tunnel. DNA goes through single file, dipping the current.
- Origins
- A bacterium that lives on skin and in noses, often unnoticed.
- Last seen
- A 5 mL tube marked NOSE in the freezer at HQ.
of them in a milligram of the dried protein, seven parts to a pore.
Far fewer on a nose swab. You’ve never seen one.
The poster on the street
This is the photocopied wanted poster for Alpha-hemolysin, No. 98. They were made for noticeboards around Boston, Cambridge and the rest of the east coast.
Found one? Scan its QR code with your phone. If you're a signed-in player, the sighting goes on your record with +1 XP.
Not a player yet? Join the Epic Quest: the real role-playing game of Molecular Reality, a nanopore lab, with the CEO as gamemaster.