When Rebecca Hanna left Rio
Americano High School for an academic path that would include a doctorate from
Yale in molecular biophysics and biochemistry, she didn't expect to become a
jeweler.
Yet there she was this past
weekend, her blond hair tipped with pink, bursting to share the beauty of
neurotransmitters as she sold molecule-themed earrings and necklaces at a
science conference in San Francisco.
When a passing youngster asked
her why the earrings have such funny shapes, Hanna glowed.
"The shapes of molecules are
really important to their function," Hanna said, explaining the way a
chemical like serotonin, responsible for feelings of well-being, binds to a
specific receptor in the brain shaped just for it.
"It's almost like a lock and
key," she said.
Handing a purchase to another
customer, she added, "a covert science lesson in every box."
Hanna, 34, who has largely shed
Rebecca for her nickname Raven, is the kind of person who can, with a straight
face, start a sentence, "I was just reading for fun about
neurotransmitters when ..."
At last week's annual meeting of
the American Association for the Advancement of Science, she was equally at
home with researchers there to present papers as with kids there for
"family science day."
For anyone who dawdled a moment,
she had the same offer: "Would you like a temporary serotonin
tattoo?"
The little stencils were attached
to her business card, "Made with Molecules."
Hanna, the daughter of a
Sacramento elementary school teacher and an ecology professor at California
State University, Sacramento, had been aiming toward a professorship and RNA
research until she realized, during postdoctoral work at UC Berkeley, that her
artistic side was yearning to be free.
The perfect opportunity arrived
by accident, when she saw a standardized representation of the chemical
structure of serotonin and thought it was so gorgeous she just had to have a
serotonin necklace.
She went online to look for one.
No such thing. Hanna, a resourceful woman, tracked down a jeweler through
Craigslist willing to teach her how to make a necklace.
A little more than 18 months
later, her business was so successful that she'd given up various science
education and outreach gigs to design jewelry, cards and clothing full time.
There are baby clothes, including
tiny rompers stamped with the shape of oxytocin, the "cuddle"
molecule, generated when parents hold their children, as well as during
breast-feeding and after lovemaking.
There's a "focus" necklace,
dangling with images of dopamine, acetylcholine, and norepinephrine,
neurotransmitters that aid attention.
There's a holiday card with a
"peace" peptide -- a small protein built from five amino acids
described in shorthand by the letters P E A C E. (For the curious, that's
proline, glutamic acid, alanine, cystine, and glutamic acid again, which uses a
shorthand E instead of G because the G was already taken.)
Before jewelry, when Hanna met a
stranger on a plane or at a party, it used to pain her the way her listener
would seem intimidated when she said she studied biochemistry.
Science, she said, shouldn't
scare people.
"Learning about our world is
so cool," Hanna said. "I love the feeling of awe that science gives
you, when you discover just how beautiful things are. Nature gives me
chills."
And yes, she assures customers
who notice the "Ph.D." on her card: Her mother is proud.
About the writer:
· The Bee's Carrie Peyton Dahlberg can be
reached at (916) 321-1086 or cpeytondahlberg@sacbee.com.
Rebecca
"Raven" Hanna makes science sparkle.
The chemical
structure of the serotonin molecule provides the shape for a pair of earrings.
Raven Hanna
