Amino Acid Starter

Explore protein synthesis

This engaging, hands-on protein folding kit makes teaching protein structure basics easy. Your students will fold a protein while exploring how the chemical properties of amino acids determine its final structure. Teachers who use our Amino Acid Starter Kit© say their students love the kit’s captivating mini toobers and they refer back to the activities throughout the year.

Your student will use the Amino Acid Starter Kit© to:
Learn that the 20 amino acids all share a common backbone but have different side chains, each with different chemical properties.
Identify the chemical properties of the side chains through a dual coloring scheme guided by the kit’s chemical properties circle, amino acid side chain list and colored plastic clips.
Group the side chains into one of 5 categories: hydrophobic (nonpolar), hydrophilic (polar), negatively charged, positively charged, and cysteines, which sometimes form disulfide bonds. The colored clip at the base of each side chain indicates chemical properties while embedded colored balls in the amino acid side chain model show atomic structure.
Employ the kit’s protein-folding activities to first explore the primary and tertiary structure of proteins by constructing a generic 15-amino acid protein, then learn about the secondary structure of proteins by folding a toober model of the first of 3 zinc fingers of the Zif268 protein.

Each 1-group set includes 1 chemical properties circle, 1 amino acid side chain chart, 22 amino acids, 1 mini toober, 22 colored plastic clips and 6 hydrogen bond connectors.