Outreach – The Davis Lab

ATL Science Festival 2026

The Atlanta Science festival is an annual event in which representatives from a wide range of STEM careers and organizations host events to engage with the local community. The Davis Lab hosted a booth entitled, “Protein Crystallography: Become a Protein Detective!” targeting families with children aged 8-13 at this Exploration Expo on March 21st, 2026.

Visitors followed the workflow of protein crystallography, translating genetic code into a mystery protein, harvesting model crystals and examining real ones under a microscope, and matching pinhole diffraction patterns to the protein.

Lidia teaches looping with real protein.

It's always better to loop with a friend :) — It's always better to loop with a friend 🙂

Drisha explains diffraction with a pinhole box.

Science ATL L.A.B.S. 2025

We partner with Science ATL to host a Learning And Bonding through Science (L.A.B.S.) events. These events are designed to let parents (or chaperones) and their middle or high school kids do science experiments together. The Davis Lab hosted the Science ATL LABS: Biochemistry on August 23rd, 2025.

Participants got to crystallize their very own protein, look at it under a microscope, pick it up for freezing in liquid nitrogen, and practice solving the structure on the computer.

Tiffany teaches pipetting, while Dad takes some pics :) — Tiffany teaches pipetting, while Dad takes some pics 🙂

This looks like a modeling breakthrough!

Science ATL L.A.B.S. 2024

The Davis Lab first hosted the Science ATL LABS: Biochemistry on October 26th, 2024.

ATL Science Festival 2024

The Davis Lab hosted a booth entitled, “What are proteins and how can we see them?” targeting families with children aged 8-13 at this Exploration Expo on March 23rd, 2024.

Visitors learned about the different levels of protein structure, working with pipe cleaners and beads. Analogous to how our group determines the structure of proteins using X-rays, they also imaged small objects via cyanotyping.