Hey there,

It’s exciting to be back. After a period of redevelopment, Clockwork is relaunching with a stronger model to ensure the media we produce is more valuable to scientists and science educators.

The response to the initial run Clockwork had on YouTube was nothing short of extraordinary. It was amazing to discover there’s a real appetite for media that explores the deeper topics in Biology.

However, converting the fundamentally 3-dimensional world of Biochemistry into 2D abstractions is incredibly time-consuming and doesn't provide any real benefit to educators.

At the same time, new tools and a meteoric advancement in GPU technology have made it shockingly possible to create animations using real scientific data from the Protein Data Bank. Using real data allows Clockwork to create far more useful media. So, I’ve spent this development period adapting the Clockwork style to a 3d workflow.

TLDR:

clockwork is going 3-dimensional

Clockwork is sticking with roughly the same style and color palette with mild adjustments to smooth out this transition to 3d.

In addition, I’m adding new media branches to the Clockwork brand to ensure we cover a better variety of topics. This is also going to make sure that Clockwork has a more sustainable business model moving forward so I can release seasons of core Clockwork videos more consistently.

Clockwork will come to you in a few major branches:

• A curated newsletter bringing you the top stories coming out of Biology (weekly for now)

• Deep-dive image posts on Instagram and other platforms exploring the latest developments in the life sciences (daily)

• Shorter, punchier animations exploring biochemistry on Reels or TikTok (semi-weekly, pushing toward daily.

• Core Clockwork videos exploring the foundations of Biochemistry on YouTube. (Monthly for now).

  Season 2 of Clockwork will be released in June on YouTube. In the meantime, there’s still plenty of Biochem to explore. Let’s check out the new branches in detail:

email remains undefeated

The Clockwork Newsletter

A weekly exploration of new papers and discoveries coming out of the life sciences at a pivotal moment

📰 We need a home base outside of the algorithms

Algorithmic channels like Instagram and YouTube are great for discovery, but they are fundamentally unreliable and force creators to make drastic shifts over time. Maintaining a newsletter with a robust email list gives us a strong foundation to fall back on in the event of shifts in any of the big algorithms.

Plus, a newsletter allows us to stay up-to-date with cutting-edge scientific research in Biology. A platform like this better connects the channel with the wider scientific community. Since this channel only exists to highlight the advanced life scientists and elevate the brilliant researchers expanding our understanding of life at the molecular level—making a newsletter is a real no-brainer here.

Plus, while I’ve been developing Clockwork, my full-time job has been building and growing email newsletters. This is the format I have the most professional experience in and therefore it’s the medium I can spin up the fastest without impacting daily operations too drastically.

SO WHAT WILL THIS NEWSLETTER LOOK LIKE?

Expect this exact format. We’ll have quick, digestible summaries of the most impactful papers coming out of the Life Sciences space every week. I’m going to be biased towards anything that comes with an entry into the Protein Data Bank. We’ll expand into areas like Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, and even the Pharmaceutical Industry based on where the news is.

We’ll explore the top 3-4 stories of the week in Biology every Thursday moving forward. Make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss a single update!

  | Check out everything we’re doing at watchclockwork.com  |

life in pictures

Expanding our Instagram Footprint

For every video, we can make dozens of static images

📷️ There’s just so much happening in Biology right now

Unfortunately, writing and fact-checking scripts alone significantly limits our ability to produce full YouTube videos. However, the transition to 3D production makes it much faster to produce static images and shorter videos for Instagram and TikTok (until it gets banned lol).

EVERY NEWSLETTER POST WILL HAVE A COMPANION PIECE ON INSTAGRAM

The Instagram algorithm has come a long way in the past few years and now appears to be a strong choice for educational posts. So, every story I post to the newsletter will have a companion Instagram piece that expands and elaborates on the subject matter.

AND MORE EXPERIMENTS WITH SHORTER VIDEO

As the newsletter builds momentum, I’ll also add shorter animations to Instagram Reels and TikTok.

Make sure you’re following us on Instagram | May as well on TikTok too 

going 3d

Our Biggest Plans are on Youtube

Using scientifically accurate data unlocks so much potential

 🔬 Most of the redevelopment work has been focused on new YouTube videos

We have a handful of scripts already baked out and ready to fully animate. Now that I have enough of a handle on rendering real PDB models—I’m hard at work bringing these scripts to life for the launch of Season 2 in June.

SEASON 2 STARTS WITH THE CENTRAL DOGMA

DNA replication is one of those ‘holy grail’ molecular processes to animate. I’m going to take things up a notch by focusing on the Human Replisome. Buckle up.

AND WE WILL GRADUALLY WORK INTO IMMUNOLOGY

Sure, it will take dozens of videos—but we will tackle a molecule-by-molecule view of the Immune System throughout season 2. I couldn’t be more excited for this.

From there, we’ll be covering lots of different pathways. The real goal of Season 2 is to develop an efficient enough workflow to post YouTube videos every 2 weeks instead of monthly. Right now, that goal looks achievable, especially if we have enough success to expand our GPU infrastructure.

 | Make sure you’re subscribed to Clockwork on YouTube |