The global health landscape achieved a significant breakthrough this spring with the widespread distribution of Covid-19 vaccines. Celebrating this scientific advancement, MIT Professor Markus Buehler composed "Protein Antibody in E Minor," an innovative orchestral piece recently performed by South Korea's Lindenbaum Festival Orchestra. Though the concert hall remained empty due to ongoing restrictions, the powerful message of hope resonated worldwide.
"This composition embodies optimism as we transition into this new pandemic phase," explains Buehler, who serves as both the McAfee Professor of Engineering at MIT and an experimental music composer.
"This marks the beginning of our musical healing journey," adds Hyung Joon Won, a Seoul-based violinist who initiated this unique scientific-artistic collaboration.
"Protein Antibody in E Minor" follows Buehler's previous creation, "Viral Counterpoint of the Spike Protein," which he composed during the initial coronavirus wave last spring. That first piece garnered international media attention, spreading globally like the virus itself, eventually reaching Won, who was at the time performing for Covid-19 hospitalized patients. Won became the first of numerous artists seeking collaboration with Buehler.
Following Won's suggestion, Buehler adapted "Viral Counterpoint" for violin performance. This spring, the two musicians reunited, with Buehler utilizing AI protein structure analysis to transform the coronavirus-attacking antibody protein into a complex musical score for a 10-piece orchestra.
The two compositions differ dramatically, reflecting the distinct characteristics of their protein inspirations. "Protein Antibody" exhibits harmony and playfulness; "Viral Counterpoint" evokes foreboding, even sinister qualities. Based on the protein segment that binds to SARS-CoV-2, "Protein Antibody" spans five minutes; "Viral Counterpoint," representing the virus's complete spike protein, unfolds over 50 minutes.
Buehler notes that the antibody protein's relatively simple structure naturally lent itself to classical composition. In contrast, the spike protein's intricate folds demanded a more complex musical representation.
Both pieces employ Buehler's pioneering theory for converting protein structures into musical compositions. Both proteins—antigen and pathogen—contain 20 amino acids, expressible as 20 unique vibrational tones. Like all molecules, proteins vibrate at different frequencies, a phenomenon Buehler has leveraged to "visualize" the virus and its variants, capturing their complex interactions through musical notation.
Through his work with the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab and PhD student Yiwen Hu, Buehler discovered that the proteins decorating SARS-Cov-2 vibrate less frequently and intensely than its more lethal relatives, SARS and MERS. He theorizes that viruses employ these vibrations to facilitate cellular entry; the more energetic the protein, the deadlier the virus or mutation.
"As the coronavirus continues to evolve, this artificial intelligence coronavirus research approach provides us with an innovative method for studying variants and assessing their threat levels," Buehler explains. "It also highlights the importance of viewing proteins as vibrating entities within their biological context."
Transforming proteins into music represents just one aspect of Buehler's broader work designing novel proteins by drawing inspiration from nature and harnessing machine learning protein music translation capabilities. He has trained deep-learning algorithms to both convert existing protein structures into their vibrational patterns and reverse the process to deduce structure from vibrations. With these advanced tools, he aims to modify existing proteins and create entirely new ones targeting specific technological or medical applications.
The scientific-to-artistic transformation process serves as an alternative "microscope" for observing nature, Buehler suggests. It has also expanded his work's reach to a wider audience. More than a year after "Viral Counterpoint's" debut, the piece has accumulated over a million downloads on SoundCloud. Some listeners were so inspired they requested Buehler's permission to create their own interpretations. Beyond Won, the South Korean violinist, the piece inspired a South African ballet company, an Oregon glass artist, and a Michigan dance professor, among others.
A suite of homemade ballets
Joburg Ballet, like the rest of South Africa, shut down last spring. However, during lockdown, "Viral Counterpoint" reached Iain MacDonald, Joburg Ballet's artistic director. At that time, the company's dancers were quarantining at home. With traditional ballet performances impossible, MacDonald improvised; he assigned each dancer a segment of Buehler's music and tasked them with creating choreographic responses. They performed from home while friends and family recorded with cellphones. Edited together, these segments became "The Corona Suite," a six-minute piece that premiered on YouTube last July.
In the production, dancers twirl and pirouette on unconventional stages: in an apartment building stairwell, on a garden ladder, and beside a glistening swimming pool. Without costume access, dancers made do with their own leotards, tights, and even boxer briefs, in whatever shade of red they could find. "Red became the socially-distant cohesive thread that connected our company," MacDonald explains.
MacDonald intended the piece as both a public service announcement encouraging home-staying and a message of hope: that the company's dancers would return to the stage, maintain mental and physical fitness, and that everyone would emerge successfully. "We all hoped the virus wouldn't harm our loved ones," he says. "And that we, as people, would emerge stronger and more united than ever before."
A Covid "sonnet" cast in glass
Jerri Bartholomew, a microbiologist at Oregon State University, had planned to spend her sabbatical last year at a Spanish laboratory. When Covid disrupted those plans, she retreated to her backyard glass studio. There, she focused on her other passion: creating art from her research on fish parasites. Having previously collaborated with musicians to translate her data into music, when she heard "Viral Counterpoint," she felt compelled to reinterpret Buehler's music as glass art.
She located his pre-print paper detailing the sonification process, digitized the figures, and transferred them to silkscreen. She then printed these images onto glass sheets, fusing and casting them to create a series of increasingly abstract representations. Afterward, she spent hours polishing each glass creation. "It requires extensive grinding," she notes. Her favorite piece, Covid Sonnet, displays the spike protein flowing into Buehler's musical score. "His musical composition represents an abstraction," she explains. "I hope people will wonder why it appears and sounds as it does. It makes the science more engaging."
Transforming a lethal virus into movement
Months into the pandemic, Covid's impact on United States immigrants became increasingly apparent; Rosely Conz, a Brazilian-born choreographer, sought to channel her anxiety into artistic expression. Upon hearing "Viral Counterpoint," she recognized it as the perfect score for her ballet. She would make the virus visible, she determined, just as Buehler had made it audible. "I explored virus characteristics applicable to movement—its machine-like qualities, its transmission between performers, its protein spike enabling its infectiousness," she explains.
"Virus" premiered this spring at Alma College, a rural Michigan liberal arts institution where Conz teaches. On a dark stage illuminated by red light, her students leaped and glided wearing black pointe shoes and face masks. Their elbows and legs thrust toward the air, almost mechanically, seemingly channeling the virus's menacing nature. These movements contrasted with "melting movements" that Rosely says embody human emotion. The piece literally addresses the virus while also reflecting the constraints of creating art during crisis; the dancers maintained six-foot distance throughout. "I always tell my students that choreography should transform limitations into possibilities, which is precisely what I attempted," she says.
At MIT, Buehler plans several additional "Protein Antibody" performances with Won this year. In his laboratory, he and Hu, his PhD student, are expanding their AI-powered molecular vibration studies to explore potential therapeutic applications. "This represents the next step in our quest to better understand life's molecular mechanics," he explains.
