David Goodsell

David S. Goodsell, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Department of Molecular Biology at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. He is especially known for his watercolor paintings of living cells.
Originally trained as a structural biologist, Goodsell has developed a signature style of scientific drawing. He started painting early in his childhood. While in college, he majored in both chemistry and biology but not in art. In graduate school, Goodsell became interested in scientific illustration while writing molecular graphics programs to visualize protein and DNA structures. During his postdoctoral years, Goodsell further honed his skills as both a scientist and an artist.
Goodsell's illustrations are published monthly in the Protein Data Bank, an archive of protein structures. His illustrations are used in many biology textbooks and scientific publications. He is the author of several books including Bionanotechnology: Lessons from Nature (J. Wiley and Sons, 2004), Our Molecular Nature: The Body's Motors, Machines, and Messages (Springer-Verlag, 1996), and The Machinery of Life (Springer-Verlag, 1993)