The X Prize foundation has taken time out from promoting spacefaring, and unveiled what it claims is the largest LEGO DNA sculpture in the world.

“Just as each brick plays an important part in holding the sculpture together, each gene within the human genome helps us understand more about ourselves as humans and how we are all connected,” says artist Nathan Sawaya (press release).

The roughly two metre ‘Building Bricks of Life’ sculpture is on display today at the Saint Louis Science Center on 15 April as part of National DNA Day. Although known mainly for their space exploration funding, the X Prize also sponsors a competition to get 100 human genomes within 10 days or less for $10,000 per genome.

Now if they can make a video showing this sculpture doing transcription (like this example) we’ll be really impressed.

Image: X Prize