The Node-BSDB virtual art exhibition — People’s choice and Judges’ choice
Posted by the Node, on 8 November 2023
To showcase the variety of interests and artistic talents among the developmental biology community, the Node and the British Society for Developmental Biology (BSDB) have jointly organised a virtual art exhibition, to accompany the European Developmental Biology Congress that happened in September 2023.
Thank you to all the talented people who submitted their artwork and to everyone who has visited the art exhibition so far. The exhibition is open until the end of November 2023.
We asked you, the Node community, to vote for your favourite artwork from the exhibition. We also asked a panel of judges from the BSDB and The Company of Biologists to choose their favourite — and the results are now in!
Category: Scientific images
Judges’ choice
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Oliver Anderson (Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute)
In this image, microtubules are shown in red/yellow, and nuclei in white. Cells rush to fill an opening in the colony, with their jagged flame-like microtubules roaring into the centre like the devouring forge-flames of Cyclopean Etna. (Aeneid Book VIII: Lines 416-425) Human induced pluripotent stem cells, imaged using a Zeiss LSM780 confocal microscope. Cells are labelled with DAPI (white), and immunostained for alpha-tubulin (red-yellow).
Judges’ choice runner-up and People’s choice
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Christoph Markus Haefelfinger (California Institute of Technology)
The cytoskeletal structure of preimplantation embryos demonstrated in a reconstruction of a stem cell derived mouse blastoid. After fixation, the structure was immunostained for f-actin (phalloidin, grey) and the inner cell mass (Oct4, red), then imaged.
Category: Science-inspired art
Judges’ choice and People’s choice
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Elad Bassat (Research Institute of Molecular Pathology, IMP)
The decision of Axolotls to stay in water rather than metamorphose. As I am in Elly Tanaka’s lab in Vienna I drew it in the style of the Austrian Gustav Klimt.
Judges’ choice runner-up
Category: Art by Scientists
Judges’ choice
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Brent Foster (Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience)
Ink drawing of an octopus. When I see these creatures glide across a surface, I almost think of them as living water.
Judges’ choice runner-up
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Morag Lewis (King’s College London)
This began as a small pencil sketch in 2019, and grew into a multipage creation over the year until it was finished in June 2020. It was inked digitally, then printed in sections and painted using watercolours.
People’s choice
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Brent Foster (Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience
Chalk drawing of a nautilus.