We have a poet in our midst; what a beautiful tribute to Dr. Matt Nugent’s
favorite molecules!
O Proteoglycans!*
by Matthew A. Nugent
O Proteoglycans! My Proteoglycans!
our secret love you’ve won
With sugar sweet and such long chains,
on a column we often run.
Why must you hide your wonders from
those who grant the funding?
We question you with steady minds,
even as your story becomes daunting.
But O Glycan! Glycan! Glycan!
O the clotting you stop best.
Along your chains where sulfates lie,
precisely where is our great quest.O Proteoglycans, my Proteoglycans,
rise up and show your purpose.
Rise up, for it is getting late, and we
are growing nervous.
For you those sugar chains and protein core,
for you the cells are crowding.
For you they say you’re too complex
their simple minds are closing.
Here PGs! Dear friends!
I realize now, only nature knows the truth.
It is time for you to show us now, before
we’ve gone and lost our youth.O friend you do not answer,
your lips are quiet and still.
You glance and nod to show your brother,
HA the space he must fill.
All alone with no protein linked
to keep him warm and safe.
I wonder why we let him in our club,
for isn’t he a waif?
Ah no, he is a friend as well
with secrets of his own.
He guards these truths so fiercely now,
that never freely will he tell.
Ah my friends, as time goes by
there is just one thing I see
That you will be here longer still
beyond the time of me
That you will be here longer still
beyond all the time of we.
*Meter inspired by Walt Whitman’s O Captain! My Captain!