Our Science-Art prizes are awarded to the best creative entry that tells the story of the research that we do at the Unit. Entries can be a microscopy image, a photograph, a video or any other creative endeavour. Two prizes are awarded annually. The judges choice winner is selected by a judging panel made up of a scientist, science communicator and an artist, and our audience winner is selected by a popular vote including all Unit members.
2022
| Slice of Life: Amrita's ink drawing is made using thousands of little dots (pointillism) depicting a slice through a cell. The image focusses on different aspects of mitochondria, it's transport and interaction with other organelles, fission-fusion and undergoing destruction (mitophagy). Mitochondria is one of the major organelles that are affected by toxins and sitting at the centre of cellular biochemistry, plays a very important role in life, death and recovery of cells. (Winner) | |
| The Big Bug Hub: Naomi drew a cartoon called 'Bug Hub': the inside of our guts, in particular the epithelial cells that are like skyscrapers in big cities for our gut microbiota. The background was drawn by hand and the cartoon drawn digitally over it. With this cartoon, I am trying to make the metaphor that the gut may seem like a big, chaotic city at first, especially when exposed to 'external' things like drugs (i.e. unexpected, incoming traffic). Like in a big city, there is lots of stuff happening at various scales. However, if we learn when and where to zoom in, and equally, when to take a step back, patterns of organisation and order may appear. (Winner) |
|
| Trooping the Colour: In-air glow discharge is a technique for cleaning and modifying surfaces in electron microscopy sample preparation, leaving the TEM grids’ surface hydrophilic and negatively charged to anchor the sample and support staining for good imaging contrast. Air contains trace amounts of noble gases; when an electrical discharge passes through a noble gas at low pressure, the gas will glow due to collisions between molecules in the gas and electrons of the current that leaves the air partially ionized. When this phenomenon occurs naturally in stormy weather, we call it St. Elmo’s Fire; when it occurs inside a glass tube, we call it a neon sign. At the EM facility we house the Quorum GloQube to help in the task. In scientific remembrance of late Queen Elizabeth II, an old Lady who enjoyed an extraordinary life! | |
| Crocheted Antibody: In our lab, we investigate the impact of immune checkpoint blockade therapies on the immune response to vaccination. This crocheted antibody (created using the Antibuddy pattern from @adele_valeria) shows the basic structure of the specific antibodies that can be formed in response to vaccination. The production of these antibodies can be impaired in people on immune checkpoint blockade due to the expansion of a subset of B cells known as Age-Associated B cells. | |
| A tricky UMAP: I’m currently collaborating on a project that is trying to disentangle progressive cell differentiation in early embryogenesis in mice. I wanted to create something that reflected the progression of cell identity whilst also showing how ambiguous the borders between cell types can be. Mixing layers of acrylic paints of different densities with silicon oil creates these shapes as the oil and water components separate and the paints slide and bubble past each other. This process continues as the moisture evaporates and the painting continues to change until the final stage when it is fully dry. | |
| River of Sorrow: The digestive tract encounters toxins on a daily basis. We use Drosophila as a model system to look at the damaging effects of different drugs on the intestinal cells. This picture depicts the gut cells with active caspases which are cell death proteins (in magenta) and nuclei (in cyan) upon ingestion of toxins. | |
| Geometry of the Naked Grid: A TEM grid is typically a flat disc with a mesh or other shaped holes used to support ultrathin sections of specimens for electron microscopy imaging, an important tool in biomedical research to investigate the detailed structure of tissues, cells, organelles and macromolecular complexes upon toxic insult and disease. Grids are available in a wide variety of hole patterns (squares, hexagons, bars, slots) and materials (gold, copper, nickel, titanium, stainless steel, aluminium). Specimens might require an additional support on top of the grid to prevent them from falling through the holes: carbon coating and glow discharge provide support for imaging without interfering with the flow of the electron beam. The digestive tract encounters toxins on a daily basis. We use Drosophila as a model system to look at the damaging effects of different drugs on the intestinal cells. This picture depicts the gut cells with active caspases which are cell death proteins (in magenta) and nuclei (in cyan) upon ingestion of toxins. | |
| Macrophages the Heroes: Long pathogenic fibres are retained in the cells during many years and eventually triggering the development of cancer. Macrophages fight against these fibres to eliminate them from our cells, however some fibres will be cleared, and some will escape from phagocytosis. These images from Perl Prussian Blue staining show the battle. | |
| PhD: Day in the Life: The video depicts a relatively standard day in my life as a PhD student, detailing my toxicological research from bench to desk, concisely edited and synced to some music. | |
| I am not there (yet): The storage of TEM grids and resin embedded specimen blocks are an important aspect in sample processing in any electron microscopy laboratory. Archives are important because they provide evidence of past research activities and preserve significant information that might complement current research, providing a base knowledge upon which built on over time. A wide range of storage boxes for short term and archiving storage are commercially available. The image shows one the oldest grids storage box kept at the EM facility; the Tim’s box. For sensitive samples and grids which need protection against oxygen, humidity and contamination we have modern acrylic desiccator cabinets. | |
| Web of actin: The image shows part of a crop leading to the anterior midgut in Drosophila melanogaster, a common model system in toxicology research. The crop is similar to the mammalian stomach and undergoes contractions that help move food into the midgut for digestion. Toxins ingested can cause damage to gut cells but can also indirectly affect other organ systems including the brain. In this image, actin in muscles surrounding the crop have been stained using Phalloidin (cyan) and the cell nuclei using Hoechst (magenta). | |
| For your eyes only: The digestive tract contains acid secreting cells that help maintain an acidic environment in the gut. The picture depicts the acid secreting gut cells marked by the homeobox protein Cut (in red) and all cell nuclei labelled with hoechst (in blue). The expression of Cut around the cell nuclei gives it the appearance of eyes. | |
| Flaming Mitochondria: Mitochondria play essential roles in regulating cellular functions. Some drug treatments and molecular interventions have been reported to have off-target effects damaging mitochondria and causing severe side effects. Some of these drugs can cause mitochondria to "burn out". My image is a confocal image of mitochondria, which I added some more flames so that it looks cooler. |
