You get a report: one 'letter' in your gene has been swapped. But what does that change? A protein isn't a flat string: it's a dense tangle, where each loop sits in its own pocket. A change deep inside that tangle is like a crack in the foundation, while one on the surface is like a scratch on the facade. To grasp how serious the damage is, you need to see where it sits in the protein's three-dimensional body.
Until recently, such 3D maps required a powerful computer. The Genomics 2 Proteins portal links the chain from gene to structure, but its web interface is designed for a big screen. The new G2P Explorer app is a native iOS tool that pulls all 71 data columns from the portal and reshapes them for your fingertip without losing anything. Six interconnected screens show the protein from different angles. A built-in 'canvas' draws a map of the protein's features, and a bridge between Swift and JavaScript reconciles the AlphaFold model versions.
Tests on proteins ranging from 189 to 1863 amino-acid 'beads' long showed that the image refreshes in 3–16 milliseconds and uses 16–72 megabytes of memory. It's like holding not just a recipe book but a living atlas, where every change is visible in its context — next to a disulfide bridge, in a binding pocket, or on the surface. A genetic variant is no longer an abstract entry; it becomes a point on a map you can examine in the field.
The longest human protein, titin, contains over 34,000 amino acids: its model would take up nearly all the memory the app allocates for six average-sized proteins.