The School of Molecular & Cellular Biology is pleased to congratulate the winners of its “Life Inspiring” art competition, which celebrates the intersection of life sciences and art.
Earlier this year, undergraduate and graduate students were encouraged to submit original works of art reflecting the joys of their scientific endeavors. Accepted mediums included graphic design, drawings, paintings, photography, and mixed media pictures. Winning artwork is currently on display in Burrill Hall.
Another call for submissions will be announced in the spring.
First Place
P.I./Faculty advisor: Pamela Martinez
Artist statement: "Biological systems exhibit remarkable interconnections across various scales to thrive in nature. In the School of MCB, our research strives to deepen the understanding of these intricate systems. In the Martinez lab, we study pathogen dynamics across multiple scales, integrating approaches from computational and mathematical modeling to gain comprehensive insights.
My research focuses on understanding the ecological and evolutionary forces that affect genetic diversity in rotaviruses. I crafted this artwork to illustrate the complexity of the unseen forces that shape life as we know it and how different scientific disciplines converge to unravel the mysteries of form and function within these systems."
Second Place
P.I./Faculty advisor: Emad Tajkhorshid
Artist statement: "My artwork highlights our discovery of a novel antibiotic drug, lolamicin, which spares the gut microbiome and resists secondary infection by C. difficile. This digital art was created using VMD (Visual Molecular Dynamics, a molecular modeling and visualization computer program developed here at Illinois) and Blender and depicts our antibiotic diffusing throughout the periplasm, glowing as it finds its binding pocket.
The culmination of a strong campus-wide collaboration between the Hergenrother, Tajkhorshid, and Lau labs and the Institute for Genomic Biology is represented in this piece. Just as lolamicin is seen illuminating its target, I believe that our work illuminates a new way to approach the design of safer antibiotics."
Third Place
P.I./Faculty advisor: Rachel Smith-Bolton
Artist statement: "Regeneration is a complicated process through which some animals restore missing tissue upon damage. We utilize Drosophila, the common fruit fly, as our model organism for studying regeneration, particularly focusing on wing imaginal discs. Dissecting larval wing imaginal discs and inspecting them under the microscope is our daily bread and butter. When research hits roadblocks, I turn to use the daily bread and butter and resort to baking as a form of therapy. Recently, I baked cookies shaped like wing imaginal discs for my lab mate and tried to inspect them under a toy microscope."
