{"id":4183,"date":"2011-02-22T16:09:08","date_gmt":"2011-02-22T21:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/biochemcellbio\/?p=4183"},"modified":"2026-01-07T15:16:49","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T20:16:49","slug":"a-poet-in-our-midst","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/biochemcellbio\/2011\/02\/22\/a-poet-in-our-midst\/","title":{"rendered":"A poet in our midst"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We have a poet in our midst; what a beautiful tribute to Dr. Matt Nugent&#8217;s<br \/>\nfavorite molecules!<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>O Proteoglycans!*<\/p>\n<p>by Matthew A. Nugent<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>O Proteoglycans! My Proteoglycans!<br \/>\nour secret love you&#8217;ve won<br \/>\nWith sugar sweet and such long chains,<br \/>\non a column we often run.<br \/>\nWhy must you hide your wonders from<br \/>\nthose who grant the funding?<br \/>\nWe question you with steady minds,<br \/>\neven as your story becomes daunting.<br \/>\nBut O Glycan! Glycan! Glycan!<br \/>\nO the clotting you stop best.<br \/>\nAlong your chains where sulfates lie,<br \/>\nprecisely where is our great quest.<\/p>\n<p>O Proteoglycans, my Proteoglycans,<br \/>\nrise up and show your purpose.<br \/>\nRise up, for it is getting late, and we<br \/>\nare growing nervous.<br \/>\nFor you those sugar chains and protein core,<br \/>\nfor you the cells are crowding.<br \/>\nFor you they say you&#8217;re too complex<br \/>\ntheir simple minds are closing.<br \/>\nHere PGs! Dear friends!<br \/>\nI realize now, only nature knows the truth.<br \/>\nIt is time for you to show us now, before<br \/>\nwe&#8217;ve gone and lost our youth.<\/p>\n<p>O friend you do not answer,<br \/>\nyour lips are quiet and still.<br \/>\nYou glance and nod to show your brother,<br \/>\nHA the space he must fill.<br \/>\nAll alone with no protein linked<br \/>\nto keep him warm and safe.<br \/>\nI wonder why we let him in our club,<br \/>\nfor isn&#8217;t he a waif?<br \/>\nAh no, he is a friend as well<br \/>\nwith secrets of his own.<br \/>\nHe guards these truths so fiercely now,<br \/>\nthat never freely will he tell.<br \/>\nAh my friends, as time goes by<br \/>\nthere is just one thing I see<br \/>\nThat you will be here longer still<br \/>\nbeyond the time of me<br \/>\nThat you will be here longer still<br \/>\nbeyond all the time of we.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<hr \/>\n<p>*Meter inspired by Walt Whitman&#8217;s <em>O Captain! My Captain!<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We have a poet in our midst; what a beautiful tribute to Dr. Matt Nugent&#8217;s favorite molecules! O Proteoglycans!* by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":922,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/biochemcellbio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4183"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/biochemcellbio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/biochemcellbio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/biochemcellbio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/922"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/biochemcellbio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4183"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/biochemcellbio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4191,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/biochemcellbio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4183\/revisions\/4191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/biochemcellbio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/biochemcellbio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/biochemcellbio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}