Molecule World

Digital World Biology

About this app

Molecule World brings interactive 3D molecular visualization to your Android phone or tablet. Open a structure from a file or fetch one by ID, then rotate, zoom, and explore it with a range of display styles, color schemes, and selection filters — whether you are teaching, studying, or just exploring the molecules of life.

LOAD STRUCTURES
- Open PDB, mmCIF, BinaryCIF (BCIF), MMDB JSON, and SDF/MOL files (gzipped supported)
- Fetch any structure by its four-character PDB ID, downloaded as a biological assembly so large complexes still open quickly
- Everything collects in a library, and the app reopens your last structure when you return

DISPLAY STYLES
- Ball & Stick, Spacefill, and Tubes (licorice)
- Ribbon/cartoon with rounded helices and beta-sheet arrows
- Molecular Surface, plus a Wire Surface that shows the shape while revealing what is underneath
- Ligands, ions, and cofactors always read clearly — organics as element-colored sticks, metals as element-colored spheres — in every style

COLOR SCHEMES
Color by Element (CPK), Secondary structure, Chain, Rainbow (N to C terminus, 5' to 3'), Residue type, Residue, Charge, Hydrophobicity, B-factor, or Domain. Switching schemes is instant.

FOCUS ON WHAT MATTERS
Use Show to display the whole structure, add crystallographic water, or isolate proteins, nucleic acids, heterogens, or the backbone (core, complete, or C-alpha trace). Options that do not apply to a structure are dimmed automatically.

SMART COLOR KEY
A live legend shows exactly what the colors mean, filtered to what is actually on screen. Heterogens split into metals and non-metals, sugars use standard SNFG colors, and single-atom ions are labeled by element.

DOMAINS
Color by structural domain, with named antibody domains (VH, CH1, CH2, CH3, and light-chain domains) fetched from NCBI. Repeated chains collapse to a clean, unique set of colors.

BUILT FOR MODERN STRUCTURES
Design-pipeline models (RFdiffusion, RFantibody, and predicted structures) that ship without secondary-structure records still show proper sheets and helices — secondary structure is computed from the backbone when a file does not provide it.

SHARE YOUR VIEW
Capture a high-resolution snapshot with a transparent background, cropped tight to the structure, saved straight to your gallery.

WHO IT'S FOR
- Students and educators in biology, biochemistry, and chemistry exploring proteins, DNA, RNA, and small molecules
- Structural biologists and crystallographers reviewing structures on the go
- Antibody and protein engineers inspecting domains, design-pipeline models, and predicted models from moles like Alpha Fold
- Anyone curious about the 3D shapes of the molecules of life

Molecule World is developed by Digital World Biology. It is a companion to the macOS and iOS apps, bringing the same beautiful rendering and science to Android.

What’s new

Welcome to Molecule World for Android — an interactive 3D molecular structure viewer.

- Open PDB, mmCIF/BCIF, MMDB, and SDF files, or fetch a structures from databases
- Styles: ball & stick, spacefill, tubes, ribbon/cartoon, surface, wire surface
- Color by element, chain, secondary structure, residue, charge, hydrophobicity, B-factor, or domain
- Show proteins, nucleic acids, heterogens, water, or backbones