VI4 Artist-in-Residence Annual Report 2021 by VI4 Research

VI4 AIR ANNUAL REPORT 2021

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SU MMAR Y VI4 AIR PROGRAM BWF AIR EXPANSION OVERVIEW PG. 20-25 PG. 4-7 Profiles of all faculty and students involved in

We have offered the VI4 AiR program for three years. Here we summarize our experience and compare our approach to other programs.

this year's BWF AiR expansion Program.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS THE ART PG. 26-43 PG. 8-15 Read detailed highlights from this year's

See a full gallery of the art submitted by this summer's students.

programming, including the design process for two different types of virtual exhibits.

VANDERBILT AIR PG. 16-19 OUTCOMES PG. 44-47 Profiles of all faculty and students involved in this year's VU Air Program.

COV ER :

Helen Qian

Shubhanjali Minhas 2

An overview of the outcomes from this year's program, including the program evaluation, deliverables, and next steps.

Justin Edaugal Eddie Qian

Michelle Kwon

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VI 4 AI R ANNUAL R EP O R T Artistic Director Scientific Director Program Manager ArtLab Writer and Intern Social Media Coordinator

K END R A H . O LI V ER , PH . D. ER IC SK A AR , PH . D. , M. P. H . ME G AN SCH L ADT, M. S . MIQ U EL A T H O R N TO N K AR IS A CALV I T T I

Please email Kendra.h.oliver@Vanderbilt.edu or megan.schladt@vumc.org with questions

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VI4 AIR PR OGR AM OVER VIE W Kendra H. Oliver

neffective communication of scientific practice, concepts, and consensus pose a grave threat to modern society. Motivation and challenges to improve science communication are particularly underscored by recent events in the public’s response and desire to understand the COVID-19 pandemic. Scientists and academic institutions must facilitate informal science learning and science communication in general. Moreover, this particular moment has accelerated the need to implement innovative solutions involving distance learning. The events in early 2020 have presented new challenges and new opportunities for remote science outreach programs. With these needs and interests in mind, we are preparing for the second year of our Artist-in-Residence program, housed across several laboratories in the Vanderbilt Institute for Infection, Immunology, and Inflammation (VI4). Here, we outline our rationale and development process, a brief description of our outcomes, and our immediate plans for improving the program moving forward. We believe artists and scientists mutually benefit from collaborative learning experiences. Historically, art and science have coexisted in many forms, dating back to ancient civilizations and exemplified by medieval Islamic architecture, the quintessential “Renaissance Man” Leonardo Da Vinci, and Santiago Ramon y Cajal’s innovative depictions of neurons. Yet, art and science have become increasingly segregated in today's Western culture since the 19th century. Both disciplines have shared origins in the representation and interpretation of nature, but their methodologies are distinct and cultural values have become associated with each practice. The scientific method,

which generates and tests hypotheses to develop generalizable rules, has been pitted against the artistic method, which cultivates shared feelings and experiences through individual subjective narratives. Nonetheless, science and art seek truth and communication; these aims are not inherently oppositional. On the contrary, we believe the intentional convergence of artistic and scientific practices is mutually beneficial to practitioners and public consumers. Integrating art and science helps develop scientific curiosity, creativity, and engagement, particularly for nonscientists. Regarding science communication, there is tremendous potential for art to call attention to global health concerns and other pertinent scientific concepts to help bring scientific discoveries into homes, increasing access and creating an ownership and belief in science that extends widely throughout society. Science communication faces several challenges in public engagement. For one, the pernicious language barrier between lay audiences and scientists is a major obstacle that often thwarts meaningful discussions. Concepts are important, jargon is not. While helpful for professionals to quickly refer to specialized phenomena, jargon limits the ability of scientists to discuss big picture concepts with the public directly. One key example is the vernacular ambiguation of "t/Theory," the result of which is a hazardous disconnect where established scientific Theories (e.g., climate change, evolution, antimicrobial resistance) are interpreted as hypothetical conjectures and fail to incorporate within the public knowledge. Poor science communication is a limiting factor in conducting critical ethical conversations necessary for governing new research areas. Gene editing, vaccination, personal data collection, and autonomous vehicle development are just a few pressing examples of topics that require social debates based on the best available scientific evidence. Meaningful, topical conversations are not possible without innovative science communication approaches that engage uninformed or misinformed populations. Researchers and institutions must strive to engage a broader community and advocate for science. Nonetheless, science communication is a bidirectional process. Thus our primary programmatic goals were two-fold: (1) to provide a lay audience with a conduit to researchers, their laboratory practices, and their findings, and (2) to develop new means for biologists to communicate their science with limited

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scientific jargon. Furthermore, we sought to develop a program suitable for remote learning, thereby increasing accessibility at a foundational level. We focused on visual communication to address these goals, embarking on a program to pair undergraduate student artists with laboratories studying infection and inflammation.

ArtLab Description

ArtLab is a cross-disciplinary program exploring the intersection of art with science, technology, engineering, mathematics, medicine, and design (STEAM2D). The overarching goal supports visual science communications approaches and outreach. ArtLab is supported by internal institutional funding at Vanderbilt, including The Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy; The Wond'ry, Vanderbilt's center for innovation; and a newly developed undergraduate program for the Communication of Science and Technology. We have developed a model to support artist-scientist in immersive art-science opportunities, including an ArtLab Fellowship, a remote Artist-in-Residence (AiR) program, and open-call exhibits. To date, we have had over 25 ArtLab fellows representing cutting-edge research from across Vanderbilt and partner institutions. We have also engaged in community-wide science outreach opportunities, including Family Day Events and The Nashville Mini-Makers Fairs that have received both intuitional and local attention. Although ArtLab has participated in several events that are geared more towards children, the target demographic is generally young adults (18-24 years old) and adults (25+). ArtLab currently supports two main opportunities to engage professionals who identify as artists and scientists (artistresearchers). The first is our ArtLab Fellowship program. For the fellowship, the artist-researcher typically has a particular medium in mind before initiating their project. Applications are reviewed by a panel that selects the projects. Artist-researcher fellows receive funds, mentorship, and guidance on exploring visuals to communicate their science. The final pieces are showcased during various exhibits across campus. Fellows also contribute to the ArtLab website by creating blog posts, videos, or other media of their choosing. Additionally, ArtLab hosts workshops for artist-researchers to explore various mediums and approaches while discussing scientific concepts. Examples include using clay to depict 3D structure on the microscopic scale. cyanotypes as a metaphor for epigenetics, and 3D printing and laser cutting. These workshops are intended to help artist-researchers create visuals that scientists can use to communicate their work to a more general audience. We have piloted both online and in-person exhibit components to maximize reach and impact. For example, we created digital catalogs to present all work during the exhibits (Supplementary materials). We are interested in expanding this effort to create durable online exhibitions where the work can live on. Online exhibitions are available at anyone’s fingertips and may promote a more active equitable environment for community

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engagement. Our online content has been primarily used to generate new science communication and outreach opportunities for researchers through the ArtLab website (artlabvandrbilt. com), Instagram (@artlab.vanderbilt), Twitter (@ArtLab_Vandy), and other platforms. This unique program has been generally limited to the Vanderbilt community and adjacent areas. Still, it is poised to expand to the broader Nashville Community and adapt to the needs of diverse populations.

Vanderbilt Institute for Infection, Immunology, and Inflammation (VI4)

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a sobering reminder of the havoc that infectious diseases can wreak on modern society. In fact, infectious disease is the only clinical specialty for which treatment options are predicted to decrease in the coming years. Historically manageable bacterial infections have evolved resistance to even our most powerful antibiotics, and pan- resistant isolates of terrible human pathogens have emerged, representing a sentinel event signaling the end of the antibiotic era. Simultaneously, globalization and climate change have enabled the emergence of various new viral pathogens for which no treatment options exist. The emergence of these new infectious threats requires the development of therapeutics that harness the power of the immune system, such as vaccines or antibody-based therapies. Similar advances in immunology are enabling the treatment of previously intractable cancers, and the field of cancer immunology has seen startling breakthroughs in recent years. This explosion in research in the area of immunology has revealed the importance of the inflammatory response to human disease. In fact, it has become increasingly appreciated that the majority of human diseases have a significant inflammatory component, positioning studies on inflammation as a core component of biomedical research focused on virtually any clinical specialty. Commensurate with an understanding of the importance of inflammation to human health is an appreciation that the human microbiome is essential to develop and train the immune system to ensure that any inflammatory response is proportional to the threat of the infectious insult, and that disruptions in the microbiome can have a profound effect on metabolism, neurological function, and susceptibility to infection. Taken together, it is clear that the fields of microbiology and immunology are at the leading edge of the most important and exciting scientific breakthroughs of this generation, and these fields are at the nexus of basic research and clinical care. To address this significant clinical need and research opportunity, we created the Vanderbilt Institute of Infection, Immunology and Inflammation (VI4) in 2017 to position Vanderbilt at the leading edge of this renaissance in microbiology and immunology. VI4 has capitalized on Vanderbilt University and Vanderbilt University Medical Center strengths in areas such as personalized medicine, structural biology, vaccinology, immunometabolism, and nutrition, while simultaneously creating

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infrastructure to support research into microbiome sciences. VI4 supports ~160 faculty and has positioned Vanderbilt as an internationally recognized leader in research that bridges the disciplines of immunology and infection biology to improve human health. The Mission of VI4 is to train the next generation of scientists and physicians and make fundamental discoveries in the areas of infection biology, immunology, and inflammation with the goal of increasing knowledge and improving human health. Through its interdisciplinary nature and mission, bridging the disciplines of immunology, inflammation, and infection biology, VI4 is a natural partner for ArtLab. Working with ArtLab and the Artist-in-Residence program provides exciting opportunities to improve our abilities to disseminate these exciting findings with new lay public audiences.

VI4-ArtLab Artist-in-Residence Program Description

The Artist-in-Residence program is an opportunity for artists and scientists to explore innovative means of science communication. We characterize the residency as the inclusion of an artistic collaboration within a research environment, exclusively occurring through remote interactions in 2020/21. Artists create imaginative visual representations related to the laboratories’ research, and scientists develop graphical abstracts for specific projects. Ideally, art will be included in manuscripts, submitted as cover art, and used to promote the laboratories on websites, social media, and other public-facing platforms. In addition to the laboratories promoting the artist's work, these collaborations have been featured at VI4 events (e.g. MEGAMicrobe, VI4 Annual Symposium) and other ArtLab-sponsored exhibitions. The primary goals of the program include: creating visual scientific art based on VI4 laboratory missions, developing or optimizing graphical abstracts from specific VI4 laboratory projects, submitting images as cover art, in manuscripts, or via social media, and participating in seasonal exhibitions. The Artist-in-Residence program occurs over a relatively short 10-week period. The rapid timeline necessitates setting clear expectations to maximize productive interactions between participants. With this goal in mind, participants were expected to reach the following benchmarks during the 2020/21 program. By the second week (June 12), artists created at least three concept drawings based on their initial unbiased and uninformed

interpretations of their laboratories research. Laboratories shared at least two graphical abstracts from specific projects over the next two weeks, after which artists provided their feedback and suggestions for improvement. Artist and scientist participants then iterated their artwork over the next several weeks, culminating in the final delivery of art and abstracts by week 10. The deliverables generated during the program serve as nucleation points to facilitate discussions regarding the artistic process, scientific methodology, and the meaning of the findings. Participants establish paired and group meetings to discuss these projects and their progress weekly. From this experience, artist-researcher and scientists participants created unique artwork based on each laboratory’s research area. Our hope, supported by the outcomes of the 2020- 2021 programming, is that this artwork will be included in posters or other print materials, used in conference and seminar presentations, added to multimedia and videos, sent to local press offices to spotlight scientists’ work, emailed to colleagues and peers, and shared on social media. Laboratories helped supply the modest costs for materials and other resources needed to produce the artwork ($150/artist), and VI4 also reserved a limited amount of funding to help defray the cost. We matched one designated scientist from each laboratory with each artist as their mentor. These scientists were tasked with regularly meeting artists via video conference, clearly describing the purpose of the art, providing and developing graphical abstracts from recent research projects, helping the artist learn relevant concepts, taking and receiving constructive feedback, using the art for its intended purpose, and helping to promote the artist's work. From this experience, artists can interact with a research laboratory, and their work is promoted by VI4, ArtLab, and the individual laboratory. This is an opportunity for the artist to gain experience working with medical and science researchers to create artwork. Artists are required to submit short weekly updates to the program directors, develop several sketches or early concept drawings, produce at least one piece of final artwork, provide brief descriptions of all artwork produced, discuss their artistic process while creating the work, engage professionally with the laboratory to learn the concepts being communicated, discuss their process and their laboratory’s interests with other artists, be mindful of research goals and objectives, and positively represent the laboratory’s research as a collaborative team member.

Anjali Kumari

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AB SCE S S CAR TO O N

By: Kadeer Wellington

By: Zhizhu Zhang

This cartoon depicts the immune cells and bacteria during abscess formation. Various images show phagocytosis, exocytosis, the release of ROS and proteases, and NETosis to trap the bacteria. The cartoon uses an actual microscopic image in the background.

An abstract showing the actual formation of a virus.

AB SCE S S F O R MAT IO N WI T H T E X T

LT B 4 CAR TO O N

By: Zhizhu Zhang

This cartoon depicts a spaceship delivering the LTB4 lipids, using the actual microscopic image taken by the Serezani lab as background. The inspiration of spaceship was taken from an interesting mistake of the computer vision technology.

This is a three-panel diagram showing a process of infection, neutrophil recruitment, and abscess formation. This diagram is an adaptation from Figure 1. by S. L. Brandt, N. E. Putnam, J. E. Cassat, C. H. Serezani, J. Immunol. 200, 3871-3880 (2018).

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By: Anika Mahajan

This painting is of osteopontin, a protein present in milk. The lab examines this protein in mice. I used watercolors for this piece and then went in with pen to define the details more.

This piece shows intestinal epithelial cells and intraepithelial lymphocytes. I used watercolors for the base, and then went in with marker and pen to add contrast to the piece.

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This is the logo I designed for th lab. It contains intestinal epithelial cells and intraepithelial lymphocytes, which the lab studies.

This image shows the difference in the appearance of endothelial cells when a virus attacks, ultimately highlighting that a virus will affect various cell types differently, creating a chain reaction between cells and the severity of the sickness.

By: Anika Mahajan

By: Ereny Morcos

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This tree of life shows the relationship between different fungal species that form chlamydospores.

Candida albicans chlamydospore

By: Melina Woods

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Unable to work with SARSCov-2 directly, techniques such as cloning the RNA into a yeast cell to form a Yeast Artificial Chromosome (YAC) have been used to then selectively target for mutations with eukaryotic Multiplex Automated Genome Editing, or eMAGE.

Group B Streptococcus in the vaginal lumen can increase over a period of time due to mucin. The influx of mucin into the GBS biofilm increases the size of the biofilm and the presence of GBS.

By: Gina Yu

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CF T R DRU G BINDING

By: Helen Qian

A depiction of drug molecules binding onto the CFTR protein to remedy loss of function mutations in cystic fibrosis.

A depiction of organelles in action on the folding and trafficking pathway of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) protein.

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Representation of some of the organ systems involved in hypertension, alongside outlines of T-cells and a blood pressure sphygmomanometer.

Graphic created for the Alexander Lab with the heart, kidneys, and blood vessels shown to represent the lab focus.

By: Brigitte Jia

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By: Brigitte Jia

Abstract heart with T-cell outline carved out of the negative space.

Cardiac and renal systems implicated in hypertension, depicted together.

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By: Brigitte Jia

Renal T-cell on a fishing hook, above its parent organ, the kidney.

Illustration of inflammatory IL-12 pathway activated in the renal T-cells of hypertensive patients.

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This image replaces human lungs with Cryptococcus spores.

This image depicts a macrophage engulfing Cryptococcus spores.

By: Lynette Butron

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This is a rendering of an MRI scan that replaces the hemispheres of the brain with Cryptococcus spores. This relates to Cryptococcus' connection with meningitis.

Inspiration was drawn from the general idea of the coordination of multiple complex functions surrounding the decomposition and modification of RNA. The labs research focused on the m6A protein and its interaction with the nuclear m6A reader YTHDC1.

By: Lynette Butron

By: Audrey Kaul

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Three conditions are commonly associated with diabetic retinopathy: high blood pressure, high fat, and high glucose. These conditions are represented by the chemical structures of angiotensin, palmitic acid, and glucose respectively that impacted gene expression. This led to phenotypic changes.

A topologically associating domain (TAD) is a region within the genome where genes are more likely to interact with one another. Dr. Basu's lab studies TADs along with other genetic elements within B cells to better understand their mechanism of generating antibodies.

By: Ellen Yu

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Activation-induced cytidine deaminase (AID) is an essential element within B cells for generating antibodies, which help to defend the human body against infections.

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By: Elaina Lewis

This is an acrylic painting done for the Lopez Lab. Jellyfish, having hundreds of different species, are a metaphor for the diversity of defective viral genomes (DVGs). Shown here are copy-back DVGs. There is large heterogeneity between DVGs and full viral genomes in cells.

Digital schema of the different pathways defective viral genomes (DVGs) can undergo as they are integrated into a cell.

DVG SCH EMS WI TH WH I T E B ACKG R O U ND

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Digital schema of the different pathways defective viral genomes (DVGs) can undergo as they are integrated into a cell.

This is a digital representation of the heterogeneity of amounts of defective viral genomes (DVGs) and full viral genomes in different cells during respiratory viral infection. The cells have different functions if there are a large number of DVGs in a cell compared to full viral genomes.

By: Elaina Lewis

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By: Elaina Lewis

By: Rebecca Dubin

This is an acrylic painting that shows a complementary color scheme. It represents one of the Lopez Lab's main area of study: respiratory viruses.

This picture shows how the COVID-19 molecule is engulfed by a cell. The ones and zeros represent the computational aspect of the lab which is important to interpret and organize results and to uncover new discoveries.

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This image depicts a concept that the Denison lab has been working on. One aspect that makes COVID-19 difficult to stop is that it has a proofreading mechanism protecting the replication of its RNA known as ExoN.

This work shows the concept of coronavirus spillover. It is a pinball machine showing several different species that have been shown to carry coronaviruses. The coronavirus ball travels around hitting the different species and earning points for the virus.

By: Rebecca Dubin

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By: Rebecca Dubin

By: Debbie Wang

This piece shows how science meets the real-world effects of COVID-19. The lungs represent the experience of many people who become ill with the virus. Inside the lungs there is a COVID19 molecule with a microscope on the left and the replication complex of Corona-virus RNA on the right.

Two logo designs created for the Ascano lab, each in three different color schemes. Both logos highlight the Acano lab's research focus -- the impact of viral infection on RNA-binding protein expression.

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This piece of cover art depicts an anthropomorphized virion wearing a suit with a head shaped like an icosahedron, representing the Kaposi's Sarcoma-associated Virus (KSHV), a major focus of the Karijolich Lab.

Logo created for the Karijolich Lab. As seen in the logo, lab equipment commonly used in biomedical laboratories sits on top. In the lower half, the "o" in Karijolich has been replaced with an icosahedron containing dsDNA, a representation of the Kaposi's Sarcoma-associated Virus, an important focus for the Karijolich Lab.

By: Justin Yu

By: Rebecca Dubin

By: Justin Yu

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By: Justin Edaugal

This is an abstract interpretation of the David Lab's research. The David Lab is interested in researching how nutrition affects microbial dynamics in the human gut over time.

Inspired by the shapes and movement of microbes and tissue cells of the human gut, this digital piece relates the dynamics of microorganisms with the dynamic movement of water, each being dependent on their environments.

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This digital piece illustrates a graphic comic-style, representation of the David Lab's research. What we eat can affect the concentration and type of microbes in our gut over time. Digital media.

Portrait of a Filipino farmer holding a basket of fruit, representing nutrition, made using graphite pencil on paper. The portrait was then cut and layered with colored paper beneath to represent microbial dynamics. The Filipino farmer portrait is a nod to Filipino heritage of the David Lab and the artist.

By: Justin Edaugal

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By: Justin Edaugal

IO R N T R ANSF ER E X PE … SE T U P

By: Justin Edaugal

By: Lucy Britto

A piece about Graft-versus-Host Disease (GVHD). This drawing is inspired by a cross-sectional, microscopic image of a normal colon on the left, and an image of an inflamed colon on the right as well as the atomic structures involved in the research.

Visual schematic of a 17-day experimental protocol performed by a postdoc in the Hasty Lab involving primary cell isolation to study to the transfer of iron between differentiated adipocytes and polarized macrophages.

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By: Lucy Britto

Depiction of the normal role of the heme oxygenase-1 protein in the heme handling pathway and how its function or ablation plays multiple regulatory roles in glucose and lipid homeostasis in a variety of cells and tissues.

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By: Lucy Britto

Overview of the relationship between iron homeostasis and the iron responsive elements/ iron regulatory protein (IRE/ IRP) system that coordinates the uptake, export, and storage of iron through post-transcriptional control mechanisms.

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F ER R O PO R T IN- 1 NO R AM …CT INAL

By: Lucy Britto

Comparison between the normal function of iron handling receptor Transferrin (TfR1) and the iron overload condition that has been implicated in decreased soluble TfR1, increased TfR1 saturation, and transcriptional dysfunction.

Describes the normal function and mechanism of ferroportin, a multi-cellular iron exporter, compared to the influence of metabolic disease that may impact iron recycling via increased transporter degradation or mutations.

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By: Lucy Britto

Comparison of the normal function of iron handling receptor CD136 and how metabolic dysfunction may impact CD163 shedding mechanisms such as enzymatic cleavage or extracellular vesicles.

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By: Michelle Kwon

Acinetobacter baumannii is a unique bacterium, widespread in hospital ICUs and surface tops. It expresses the protein DtpA which allows the bacteria to tolerate environmental conditions without water. This piece depicts the bacteria in the center, glowing, as it expresses its unique protein while being surrounded by a body of water.

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By: Elsa Runquist

This is a schema describing the process for how copy-back defective viral genomes (cbDVGs) are formed and their impact on the physiology of the cell, along with the relationship to respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) disease severity in infants.

This image was created in Adobe Photoshop. Diagram describing the different techniques used by the Lopez Lab when studying copy-back defective viral genomes (cbDVGs). These techniques include VODKA, RNA FISH, and PCR.

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By: Eddie Qian

Staphylococcus aureus mediates immunological cross-talk between osteoclasts, cells that are responsible for degrading bone and remodeling the skeletal system. Staph found in infections can "manipulate" osteoclasts and promote bone damage and loss.

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By: Eddie Qian

A prospective logo design for an un-launched VI4 program. The logo focuses on microscopy and imaging as a means to investigate disease, infection and immunology.

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By: Aneesha Anand

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This artwork captures the concepts of intestinal organoid systems and high throughput screening. The Shalek Lab uses intestinal organoids and high throughput screening to investigate how the addition of different compounds to a simulated intestinal environment influences the differentiation of intestinal stem cells (ISC's) into Paneth cells.

Six types of trimers from six strands of HIV-1 are indicated using different colors. The three approaches from top to bottom are the mixture of trimers, DNA nanoparticles with six different trimers attached, and groups of three 2-component insect ferritin with two trimers attached to each.

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Second idea development sketch

By: Aneesha Anand

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First idea development sketch

This art represents a novel technology using yeast cells to develop COVID-19 genome using Okazaki fragments during DNA replication in yeast. This allows for isolation for the COVID19 genome in DNA form and then further transcription in viral RNA.

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The following is a comic strip illustrating the methods of the manuscript. A virus attacks the throat cells of a rat. Scientist use a specific gene to help these cell alter their membrane to defend against the cell

This cover art was created for a CRISPR/Cas9 system that the Nobile lab was working on. The piece likens a block tower to the genome of Candida auris, a fungus highly resistant to antifungal treatment.

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By: Shubhanjali Minhas

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By: Shubhanjali Minhas

By: Daphne Zhu

The Pediatric Obesity Microbiome & Metabolism Study (POMMS) utilized DNA extracted from stool samples to gain insights on the microbiomes of children with obesity. This participant report returns the study's results as well as educational material on the microbiome to the individual that provided their stool samples.

This is the second version of the CRISPR/Cas9 cover art. Here, the block tower is represented in a "zoomed in" environment, where a monochromatic blue color scheme is used to represent this event occurring in the nucleus.

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The gut microbiome is incredibly diverse and influences many aspects of health, many of which are yet unknown.

Stool samples collected at three time points allows the David lab to learn about the diversity of microbes in participants' digestive tracts.

By: Daphne Zhu

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DNA from plant foods found in stool can also be sequenced.

We explored different ways to visualize the diet information obtained from stool samples.

By: Daphne Zhu

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Syncytia is represented by the green for cells and the blue for nuclei. The idea of syncytia is that many cells fuse together into one large multinucleotic cell. The white circle offers a point of focus and distinction where the haziness of the abstract comes into more focus and detail.

Graphical abstract that shows an uninfected neural organoid with a rosette on the left, and a HCMV infected neural organoid with a disrupted rosette on the right. The information in the middle conveys what processes and cells are either down regulated, absent, or unaffected with the HCMV infection.

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This work captures how the villi change once an individual gets Environmental Enteropathy. The top depicts normal villi that have a large amount of surface area with deep crevices. The bottom shows villi that have been impacted by EE.

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Representation of villi in the intestines. These villi are largely impacted by Environmental Enteropathy. Environmental Enteropathy is the disease that is being studied by the Shalek lab. EE causes the villi present in the intestines to become flattened resulting in a decrease in nutrient absorption.

By: Zhizhu Zhang

AIR COV ER 2

By: Braden Huney-

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It is on how Neutrophils and Macrophages combat Staph, and how the removal of S100 A9 protein in Neutrophils improves this.

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Focused on the role of adaptive immunity in the pathogenesis of hypertension and associated cardiovascular disease. Ultimately, the goal of Alexander laboratory is to fundamentally advance our understanding of hypertension and related cardiovascular diseases to develop new therapies for the benefit of the tremendous number of individuals affected by these conditions.

R E SE AR CH A S SISTAN T PR OF E S SOR

Andrea joined the Vanderbilt Institute for Clinical and Translational Research where she served as project manager for the Human Vaccines Project and contributed to the Drug Repurposing Program before returning to the bench. Her work in the Denison lab focuses on coronavirus antiviral therapies and mechanisms of drug resistance.

The Serezani laboratory aims to develop therapeutic strategies to control systemic (sepsis) and localized infections (skin and lung) in healthy individuals, individuals with immune deficiencies, and those suffering from chronic inflammatory diseases, such as diabetes.

I VELIN G E O R G I E V

JI M CA S S AT

M ANNY A SCANO

A S SOCIATE PR OF E S SOR OF PATHOLOGY,

A S SISTAN T PR OF E S SOR OF PATHOLOGY,

A S SISTAN T

MICR OBIOLOGY, AND IMMU NOLOGY

AND

The Georgiev laboratory aim to utilize computation to develop novel knowledge and approaches for fight diseases. They apply structure-based protein design approaches to the development of new vaccine and antibody product candidates against a number of viruses of biomedical interest.

The Cassat Lab studies host-pathogen interactions during invasive bacterial infection, with a special emphasis on understanding how infection and inflammation perturb musculoskeletal cell biology. The lab has developed a variety of tools to understand how bacteria and inflammation trigger changes in bone biology.

IMMU NOLOGY

PR OF E S SOR ,

PATHOLOGY,

BIOCHEMISTR Y

MICR OBIOLOGY

AND

In an effort to understand the molecular arms race between host and pathogen, the research program of the Ascano laboratory is centered on exploring the mechanisms that cells use to differentiate whether a nucleic acid is derived from self or non-self, and the innate immune events that ensue following that decision point.

DER BILT DAN Y V ID OLI VAR E S-V ILL AG OME Z

JO H N KAR IJO LICH

ALYS S A HA ST Y

A S SOCIATE PR OF E S SOR OF PATHOLOGY,

PR OF E S SOR OF MOLE CU L AR PHYSIOLOGY

A S SISTAN T PR OF E S SOR OF PATHOLOGY,

MICR OBIOLOGY, AND IMMU NOLOGY

AND BIOPHYSICS

MICR OBIOLOGY AND IMMU NOLOGY

The Karijolich lab is focused on the molecular biology of oncogenic viruses, in particular the human gamma herpes viruses Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus and Epstein-Barr Virus. Thier work is multidisciplinary and combines virology, immunology, RNA biochemistry, and high-throughput sequencing and proteomic approaches.

Hasty is a leader in the field of immunometabolism, primarily studying the role of macrophages in obesity and metabolic disease. Her current work focuses on macrophage iron handling as well as on immune changes in adipose tissue in weight gain, weight loss, and weight cycling.

D O LLY A PADOVANICL AU DIO

ER IC SKA AR

AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE S

A S SISTAN T PR OF E S SOR OF

MICR OBIOLOGY, AND IMMU NOLOGY

The focus of the Plate group is to define the dynamics and the coordination of protein interaction networks in cellular processes. They have developed new mass spectrometry-based proteomics and chemical biology tools to understand protein interactions timing and coordination in the pertinent biological processes.

OPH THALMOLOGY AND VISUAL SCIENCE S

The Skaar laboratory is focused on identifying factors and processes involved in the battle for metal between bacterial pathogens and their hosts. They are interested the interaction between vertebrate hosts and bacterial pathogens Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus anthracis, Acinetobacter baumannii, and Clostridium difficile.

The research focuses on the role of intestinal intraepithelial lymphocytes, IEL (a group of immune cells present in the intestinal epithelium) during immune responses in the mucosa. Our current research involves a novel IEL population discovered in our lab known as innate CD8α-α cells (or iCD8α).

L AR S PL ATE A S SISTAN T

PR OF E S SOR

CHEMISTR Y

Padovani-Claudio is a board-certified ophthalmologist and member of the American Academy of Ophthalmology and the American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus. She practices at the Tennessee Lions Eye Center at the Vanderbilt Eye Institute.

PR OF E S SOR OF PATHOLOGY,

AI R PR OGR AM 202 1

AIR VAND ST U D EN T S

H ELEN QIAN

MICHELLE KWO N

ANIKA M AHA JAN

VANDER BILT U NI VER SI T Y

PL ATE L AB

SKA AR L AB

OLI VAR E S-VILL AGOME Z L AB

Helen Qian is a sophomore from Maryland, majoring in Neuroscience. She is particularly interested in the cognitive mechanisms behind creative thought and how we respond to emotion-based stimuli, as well as how this kind of art-science research can be applied in medicine.

Michelle Kwon is a sophomore from Glen Ellyn, Illinois and is studying neuroscience. She is also a member if the Recruitment Committee for the Vanderbilt Student Volunteers for Science program.

Anika Mahajan is a rising sophomore, double majoring in Medicine, Health, & Society and Spanish. In the long-term, Anika hopes to continue her studies in medical school and eventually work as a doctor in a teaching hospital.

LUC Y BR I T TO

EDDIE QIAN

R EBE CCA DU BIN

VANDER BILT U NI VER SI T Y

HA ST Y L AB

CA S S AT L AB

DENISON L AB

Lucy Britto is an undergraduate senior studying biomedical engineering. She also works in the Rafat Tumor and Tissue Microenvironment Laboratory where she researches how radiation therapy impacts cellular metabolism in the context of breast cancer.

Eddie Qian is a Junior majoring in Medicine, Health and Society (MHS) and Molecular and Cellular Biology (MCB) with an Art Minor. He is currently working at the VUMC/VA with Dr. Lauren Woodard, whose research focuses on alternative therapies for kidney regeneration.

Rebecca Dubin is a rising junior from Tucson Arizona majoring in biology and minoring in art and art history. Inspired by her family members, she became interested in science and art at a young age.

DER BILT ELLEN YU

BR I G I T TE JIA

Z HIZ HU Z HANG

VANDER BILT U NI VER SI T Y

PADOVANI-CL AU DIO L AB

ALE X ANDER L AB

SER E Z ANI L AB

Ellen Yu is a rising senior, majoring in biology and minoring in chemistry with plans to attend veterinary school. Growing up, she has always enjoyed art and science and Ellen was part of the first rendition of ArtLab her freshman year when she enrolled in the iSeminar: Exploring Science through Art.

Brigitte Jia, a rising senior, majoring in ueuroscience along the pre-medical route. She works in Dr. Sheila Collins’ metabolism lab at VUMC as a research assistant.

Zhizhu Zhang has a major in Molecular and Cellular Biology and a minor in Studio Arts. She has been interested in drawing and painting since childhood. As a biology student, Zhizhu is also a undergraduate researcher in Ann Richmond lab in cancer immunology.

DEBBIE WAN G

JUST I N YU

QI(KAT HY ) LIU

VANDER BILT U NI VER SI T Y

ACANO L AB

KAR IJOLICH L AB

GE OR GIE V L AB

Debbie Wang is a sophomore, majoring in Neuroscience and Biology. As an artist fascinated by bold patterns, colors, shapes, and lines, she was first drawn to Biology by the subject’s uniquely shaped players – the ribbon-shaped alpha helix and wave-like beta sheet, the rigid plant cells and bubbly animal cells, the elegantly curved mRNA strands and the tiny tRNA messenger.

Justin Yu is a junior majoring in both Molecular and Cellular Biology and History. He is particularly interested in the usage of visual media to communicate abstract scientific topics.

Kathy Liu is a sophomore majoring in Molecular & Cell Biology and Mathematics. Besides her interest in the STEM area, she is also passionate about art, especially sketches and watercolors.

AI R PR OGR AM 202 1

AIR BWF E FACU LT Y

BR E T T LIN D EN B ACH

U T T IYA B A SU

ALE X SHALEK

A S SOCIATE PR OF E S SOR OF MICR OBIAL

PR OF E S SOR OF MICR OBIOLOGY &

A S SOCIATE PR OF E S SOR

PATHOGENE SIS AND OF COMPAR ATI VE

IMMU NOLOGY

MI T

MEDICINE

COLUMBIA U NI VER SI T Y

YALE U NI VER SI T Y SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

The focus of the laboratory is on the replication of hepatitis C virus (HCV) and related positive-strand RNA viruses. Another viral pathogen that we study is dengue virus, which infects 50-100 million people annually and causes 25,000 deaths. We utilize a combination of viral genetics, biochemistry, and cell biological approaches to ask fundamental questions about how positive-strand RNA viruses replicate.

The Basu laboratory has pioneered studies demonstrating that surveillance and decay of the ncRNA transcriptome is an important mechanism for development and function of mammalian cells.

SCOT T T ER HU NE

CHR IST INA HU LL

PR OF E S SOR OF MICR OBIOLOGY &

PR OF E S SOR

IMMU NOLOGY

CHEMISTR Y AND MEDICAL MICR OBIOLOGY

MEDICAL COLLE GE OF WISCONSIN

& IMMU NOLOGY

The Terhune lab focuses on determining the molecular functions of human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) proteins during infection and disease. Increasing evidence suggestions that persistent life-long HCMV infection is associated with numerous chronic diseases.

Research in the Shalek Lab is directed towards the creation and implementation of new technologies to understand how cells collectively perform systems-level functions in healthy and diseased states.

BIOMOLE CU L AR

U NI VER SI T Y OF WISCONSIN-MADISON

Research in the Hull lab focuses on three areas of human fungal pathogen biology: the molecular mechanisms of spore germination, the adaptive properties of spores that make them infectious particles, and the development of interventions to prevent and treat severe fungal diseases.

X PANSION CAR OLINA LOPE Z

CL AR IS S A NO BLE

NICHO L A S HE ATO N

PR OF E S SOR OF MOLE CU L AR

A S SISTAN T PR OF E S SOR

A S SISTAN T PR OF E S SOR OF MOLE CU L AR

MICR OBIOLOGY

U NI VER SI T Y OF CALIF OR NIA , MER CED

GENE TICS AND MICR OBIOLOGY

WA SHINGTON U NI VER SI T Y, SCHOOL OF

The Lopez lab use a multidisciplinary approach to study the intimate relationship of a virus and the organism it infects with a focus on dissecting the early events that determine the course of infection with various respiratory viruses.

Research in the Noble lab explores the molecular mechanisms behind microbial community formation. Her company, BioSynesis Inc., is directed at developing diagnostics and therapeutics to target problematic microbial communities, such as biofilms formed by pathogenic microbes.

K ELLY D OR AN

L AWR EN CE DAV ID

PR OF E S SOR OF IMMU NOLOGY &

A S SISTAN T PR OF E S SOR OF MOLE CU L AR

MICR OBIOLOGY

GENE TICS AND MICR OBIOLOGY

U NI VER SI T Y OF COLOR ADO, ANSCHU T Z

DU K E U NI VER SI T Y

SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

The David lab seeks to understand, predict, and manipulate how human microbiota behave over time. We are particularly interested in how these human-associated microbial communities resist and respond to perturbation.

MEDICINE

The Doran Lab studies of host-pathogen interactions in the central nervous system and the female reproductive tract. Their studies focus on major human pathogens including Streptococcus agalactiae (aka Group B Streptococcus, GBS).

DU K E U NI VER SI T Y, SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

The Heaton lab interested in the genetic engineering of negative sense RNA viruses, particularly respiratory viruses such as influenza viruses. These manipulated viruses, together with transgenic animal models, allow them to ask novel questions about the biology of viral infections.

AI R PR OGR AM 202 1

AIR BWF E ST U D EN T S

JUSTIN EDAU G AL

C 'AIR A DILL AR D

M ELINA WO O DS

U NI VER SI T Y OF TENNE S SEE , K NOXVILLE

JOHNSON & WALE S U NI VER SI T Y

OHIO NOR THER N U NI VER SI T Y

DAVID L AB

DOR AN L AB

NOBLE L AB

Justin Edaugal is a is a fourth year, dual-degree student, pursuing his BS in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and BA in College Scholars with a focus in Quantitative Cancer Biology.

C’Aira Dillard is a rising junior majoring in biology on the pre-med track from Evansville, Indiana. She is a part of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority Incorporated, a competitive bowler, and loves to travel.

Melina Woods is an undergraduate student-athlete majoring in Biology with chemistry and psychology minors. Art is a major part of her life and she uses art as an outlet to relieve stress caused by school, sports, and anything else.

VAR VAR A F O LI M O N OVA

EM ILY F R A Z ER

ANEE SHA ANAN D

U NI VER SI T Y OF F LOR IDA

THE U NI VER SI T Y OF THE SOU TH

INDIANA U NI VER SI T Y BLOOMINGTON

B A SU L AB

SHALEK L AB

Varvara Folimonova is a rising senior studying biochemistry and I enjoy doing art as a hobby. She currently works in Dr. Luesch’s lab, isolating marine cyanobacterial natural products that have potential medicinal value. She is inspired to pursue an M.D./Ph.D. combined degree.

Emily Frazer is sophomore pursuing a molecular biology major and economics minor. This summer the workshops broadened my use of media to digital as well as gouache paint.

Aneesha Anand is a rising senior majoring in biology and minoring in chemistry and illustration. She has always been surrounded by both art and science with a mother who is an architect and father who is an organic chemist. She plans to attend medical school and eventually become a physician.

X PANSION ANJALI KUM AR I

G I N A YU

DAPHNE Z HU

CHE ATHAM-WHI TE SCHOL AR AT

T U F T S U NI VER SI T Y

YALE U NI VER SI T Y

NOR TH CAR OLINA AGR ICU LT U R AL AND

LINDENB ACH L AB

DAVID L AB

Anjali Kumari is a senior Biology PreMedical student. She aspires to pursue a dual degree to become a clinical oncologist.

Gina Yu is sophomore majoring in Biology and Fine Arts. She is a first-generation Korean American, who uses her experiences as inspiration to try and create a body of work that explores the complexities of human experience and capture the depth in subjectivity while offering objective realism.

Daphne Zhu is a junior majoring in Neuroscience. She intends to pursue a career in medicine and cognitive neuroscience, focusing on social perception and link to psychopathology.

EL S A R U NQU IST

LYN E T T E B U T R O N

EL AI NA LE WIS

SCR IPPS COLLE GE

DU K E U NI VER SI T Y

INDIANA U NI VER SI T Y

LÓPE Z L AB

H U LL L AB

LÓPE Z L AB

Elsa Runquist is a senior majoring in Biology and minoring in Art. Her interest in biology and art started with her family's farm, where she was exposed to nature and animals. For her visual art has always been a tool to better understand the world of science.

Lynette Butron is a junior majoring in Biology and minors in Chemistry and Environmental Science. She has created art focused on endangered species incorporating their status and reasons for endangerment.

Elaina Lewis is a Junior majoring in Biochemistry and receiving a minor in Studio Art. After college, she plans on attending medical school. Blending art and science allows her to maintain a balance in analytical curiosity and creativity.

TE CHNICAL STATE U NI VER SI T Y LINDENB ACH L AB

AI R PR OGR AM 202 1

AIR BWF E ST U D EN T S

SH U BHANJALI M I N H A S

ER ENY M O R CO S

AU DR E Y KAU L

WA SHINGTON U NI VER SI T Y IN ST. LOU IS

BOWDOIN COLLE GE

INDIANA U NI VER SI T Y BLOOMINGTON

NOBILE L AB

HE ATON L AB

B A SU L AB

Shubhanjali Minhas is a junior majoring in Biochemistry and minoring in Anthropology on the pre-med track. She is involved in the student-run, multidisciplinary, health magazine, Frontiers, at Washington University in St. Louis. She is interested in scientific communication, especially in the context of health literacy.

Ereny Morcos is a Sophomore that is interested in majoring in Chemistry or legal studies with a minor in visual arts. Her goal is to improve the healthcare system, specifically the injustice faced by immigrants, underrepresented people and neglected people.

Audrey Kaul is a Biology major with both Studio Art and Environmental Science minors. She has always been passionate about climate change and sustainability and this summer interned at a local organic farm.

X PANSION KADEER WELLINGTO N

EM M A T H OM A S

JE S SICA SIM M O NS

F ISK U NI VER SI T Y

SCR IPPS COLLE GE

HAMP TON U NI VER SI T Y

TER HU NE L AB

HE ATON L AB

Kadeer Wellington is a senior double major in art and computer science st Fisk University. He's an aspiring game developer who branches out into fields of graphic design and animation as he seeks to also publish his own manga in the future.

Emma Thomas is a rising senior majoring in Science, Technology, and Society on the Pre-Med Track. She has been interested in art her entire life through learning histories and techniques at school, developing her own personal style, and observing the work of others.

Jessica Simmons is a 3rd Year, Biology Premed Major minoring and Leadership studies and Political Science at Hampton University. Her interest include graphic and design and video editing.

VI 4 AIR PR OG R AM

" SCIENCE PR OV ID E S AN U ND ER STAN D ING OF A U NI V ER S AL E X PER IENCE . AR T S AR E A U N I VER S AL U ND ER STAND ING OF A PER SONAL E X PER IENCE . T H E Y AR E B OTH A PAR T OF US AN D A M ANIF E STATION OF T HE S AM E TH ING . TH E AR T S AN D SCI EN CE S AR E AVATAR S OF H U MAN CR E ATI V I T Y."

–MAE JEMISON Science communication with metaphors and a paintbrush

anderbilt Alumna, Eve Moll, BA’20, shared this quote with her audience in her workshop on June 7, which detailed the connections between art and science, particularly healthcare and biomedical research. The workshop divided the connection between art and healthcare into three categories: communication, human connection, and technical/observational skills.

Miquéla Thornton In honing in on the communication aspect, Moll described art as “a vehicle for information about health, medicine, complicated topics,” whether it be for researchers to communicate their ideas to each other, for the promotion of health literacy, through communication with the general public, or for the aesthetic and

visual representation of data and concepts. For Moll, the first thing that comes to mind when she imagines art as a vehicle for science communication is cover art, specifically cover art for scientific journals such as Cell. She describes cover art as the key to engaging an audience and capturing their imaginations, whether they reside inside or outside the scientific community. The first cover was created by artist Misaki Ouchida, with the goal of capturing the featured paper’s essence. As Moll explained, Ouchida is depicting the impact of turbulence on platelet biogenesis. Platelets are tiny blood cells that aid the body in forming clots to help stop bleeding. However, many diseases can cause low platelet counts, causing patients to regularly receive blood transfusions. The study that Ouchida illustrates shows a new way that utilizes turbulence in order to increase platelet quantity. The blue woman is a metaphor for megakaryocytes, cells in the bone marrow responsible for making platelets. According to Ouchida, she “decided to paint the Gogh style background to imply turbulence.” The red petals impacted by the woman’s turbulent blowing represent the creation and distribution of platelets on the blood. In communicaing science verbally, journalists often use metaphors and other evocative literary devices to explain complex concepts to a general audience. The usage of metaphors allows for a level of understanding that would not be achieved with traditional scientific descriptions laden with jargon and unfamiliar concepts. Moreover, metaphors allow these unfamiliar concepts to unravel themselves in the mind of the reader, a process catalyzed by the usage of familiar comparisons like blowing a handful of petals. When translated into the visual medium of cover art, this visual analogy allows the reader to pick up this issue of Cell, turn to the featured article’s page, and go into the science with potentially a visual understanding of what the process of turbulence mimics. The other covers demonstrate a similar technique. Eric Jacobson, the director of Threestory Studio, generated the image on the second cover: a conceptual illustration of the confirmation of the STING receptor protein, an important signaling molecule for certain cancer processes. This confirmation, as Moll points out, is kind of like the changes butterfly wings undergo. This change inspired the image. As Threestory Studio’s blogpost points out, “You can see the rough outline of the molecule in the wings of the largest butterfly.” Though the metaphor is not as direct as the comparison in the first cover, the idea of the butterfly representing protein confirmation gives a concrete depiction of an idea that may develop in abstraction in the minds of some readers. The last cover, designed by Bruna di Giacomo, a PhD student at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing, materializes what is already an abstract concept: life. To illustrate the research of RNA’s effect on the lifespan of Drosophila, better known as the genus of flies, a fly sits on a clock that represents its lifespan. On the clock, a sequence of RNA nucleotides replaces time, as if to say the life of the fly is no longer governed by traditional numerical measurements of time, but instead this RNA. The specific

Eve Moll sequence is to represents the function of specific circular RNA (circSfl), during the aging process. Additionally, the watercolor circles patterning the cover represent circular RNA. This depiction allows for an image association to pair with a complicated and at times abstract concept: the alteration of life. In an interview about the cover, di Giacomo said, “The PhD is mostly about doing science. But it’s also important to think about how to convey your message to the scientific audience or even to the broader public. Combining science and art is a wonderful and fun way to communicate your science.” Effective cover art is one way to aid a reader’s understanding of scientific literature while merging the values of both the sciences and the arts. Moreover, it shines a light on the importance of comprehensibility and removes a false dichotomy that has been forged between the sciences and the arts; between research and aesthetic value. It does this by reminding us there is more than one lens from which to view, engage with, digest, and communicate a subject. To evoke Mae Jemison’s aforementioned words, if both science and art are the “avatars of human creativity,” to simultaneously engage with both with the goal of communicating the same idea allows for a better understanding of the ad rem topic, and the human experience at large.

VI 4 AIR PR OG R AM

JACOB STEENWYK AR T WI TH AMPHIBIANS, ALGOR I THMS AND ADVOCACY Miquéla Thornton

J L ST EENW YK .COM

o place science and art in separate binaries, unable to mix, is to limit the full potential both disciplines possess. On June 14, Vanderbilt graduate student in the Department of Biological Sciences Jacob Steenwyk led an ArtLab workshop titled “The Junction Between Art and Science,” in which he overviewed his personal relationship with both science and art, how art relates to him as a researcher and his path as an artist, all experiences he employed in explaining the bridge between science and art, and the value in bringing the two together. Steenwyk, who comes from a family of artists, said he’s always been the odd one out with “the science stuff.” However, after dabbling in the arts, initially drawing on PowerPoint, he uncovered a passion and began finding ways to connect his two interests. When he entered grad school at Vanderbilt, he joined the Antonis Rokas Lab where, in addition to research, he created lab posters detailing Rokas’s branches of study: evolutionary relationships between organisms, the evolution of human pregnancy, and Steenwyk’s focus: the evolution of yeasts and molds. In his own research, Steenwyk hones in on the microbial domestication of yeast. In the illustration to the left, Steenwyk and his friends created a graphic for a lecture he gave that takes this literally: yeast as a domesticated pet. He described the graphic as a way in which he was able to pull people in, thus situating art as a “vehicle for information about complicated topics,” to reemploy the words of last week’s workshop speaker, Eve Moll, on the topic of scientific journal cover art. However, Steenwyk’s work doesn’t stop at supplementary illustrations. He also creates digital art in a more traditional sense, while raising awareness for environmental issues. As a former ArtLab fellow, he created “Sun Frogs,” to bring attention to the amphibian apocalypse, a rapid decline in 501 frog and salamander species across the globe. This amphibian death is due to a microscopic, invasive organism called chytrid fungus. It develops on and rips the frogs’ skin, thus disrupting their breathing process. The frog can only combat this through selfmedication via sunbathing. The UV light is able to kill the chytrid. So naturally, in his art piece, the background the frogs lay on is the color spectrum of sunlight. Also as an ArtLab Fellow, he created “Yeast Portrait:” budding yeast in the style of Andy Warhol. “The whole idea was to borrow elements from the art world and the science world and just kind of smash together.” He spoke about how both artists and scientists can look at it side-by-side, appreciating different elements of the art. This appreciation may be the pop-art influence of Andy Warhol or the significance of the budding yeast and its contributions to our planet’s ecology. To Steenwyn, this ultimately allows the two worlds to collide.

The combined Jacob Steenwyk ideas behind “Yeast Portrait” and “Sun Frogs” catalyzed Steenwyk’s art shop: Sciart. 100% of profits go towards global conservation efforts. While not all, his main subjects are endangered organisms. “The point is to use art to raise awareness and to, in a very fantasized sense, immortalize these endangered species.” Additionally, Steenwyk’s original 2019 budding yeast portrait later appeared on a 2021 cover of Yeast, along with a perspective article of his, emphasizing how the arts and sciences as a whole offer much more than the sum of their parts. “I strongly believe that when you combine the arts and sciences, you get something far more enriching than when they are divided,” Steenwyk said. The opportunity soon allowed him to design three more journal covers. Recently, Steenwyk has been taking his science art in a new, experimental direction: making abstract art with algorithms. As he describes it, unlike his mindful work, this is about “giving up control.” To do this, he wrote an algorithm that takes a set of numbers and runs them through a very complex line. It does this and saves the data roughly ten million times. After the number comes out of the algorithm, he gets a picture made of linear lines. The goal was to remove himself from the artistic process and allow the algorithm to be the artist. Similarly, Steenwyk has begun allowing computers to make his art. Pictures often have a pdf of random text attached to them that is only meant for computers to read. Steenwyk wondered what would happen if he deleted portions of it. Would the computer still be able to interpret the hidden message? To his surprise, as long as he didn’t delete vital lines, the computer was able to read the text and produce an altered image. There is no method to the portions Steenwyk deletes, and thus, this time the art is put into the hands of artificial intelligence. The images are regurgitated with different textures, shapes and hues, and to Steenwyk, they are emotionally evocative. Much like his father’s art, Steenwyk says these pieces ask the question of what beauty really is. In these, that question is not only considered through the human gaze, but it is also situated in the perception of the computer.

VI 4 AIR PR OG R AM

“HUMANS AR E WIR ED TO LE AR N THR OUGH STOR Y TELLING ,” MCK INL AY S AID, BU T “AT SOME POIN T THAT ' S F R OWNED U PON, BU T I DON’ T THINK I T NEEDS TO BE ”. J a k e M c K i n l ay

TE ACHIN G M I CR O BI O LO GY T H R OUG H V ISUAL , AR TISTI C, AN D PLOT-DR I V EN STO R Y TELLI NG

ake McKinlay, an associate professor and artist at Indiana University Bloomington, gave a workshop to ArtLab’s artists-in-residence on scientific visual storytelling. His main sector of research is physiology, and as a professor of bacterial metabolism, he has a goal to change the negative perception surrounding the topic of metabolism, emphasize its importance, and emphasize that it does not have to be a boring exercise of memorization. Thus, McKinlay aspires to “facilitate the contextualization of details into functional knowledge.” By this, he means that though metabolism is an inherently detail-intensive subject, his goal as an educator is to allow his students to think about how those details fit together to do something important. The idea of linking ideas together to form a sequence of events, otherwise known as plot, is where storytelling comes in. With that storytelling, he aspires to make microbiology more approachable. McKinlay has already begun utilizing visual storytelling, employing his artistic abilities, in his own classroom. In collaboration with Dr. Katie Kearns, also of Indiana University Bloomington, he has integrated it into an undergraduate course and found that it appears to have a measurable impact on attitudes towards metabolism and might have had a light positive impact on performance after one year of data. The students in their own opinion, also believe it aids their understanding of metabolism. In the panel below, students are able to learn how E. coli thrives in different environments, as well as how other bacteria thrive in those environments as well, doing things that E. coli cannot do. McKinlay hopes that with methods such as this, when asked the question of what E. coli can do in a given environment, they can pull from the story and the aiding art. Without the aid, many students may pull random memorized facts from the course without truly knowing what E. coli can and can’t do; however, with a linear storyline, he hopes, students will more easily link all of the information together and arrange it. In speaking about this strategy, McKinlay referenced a study by Jay Hosler, which asks if comic books are an effective way to engage nonmajors in learning and appreciating science. The study found that students showed a statistically significant improvement on the test administered to them after using the comics to learn particularly among those with lower content knowledge at the start of the semester. It also showed improvement in attitudes about biology was correlated to attitudes about comics, suggesting that the comic may have played a role in engaging and shaping student attitudes in a positive way. In his own teaching, McKinlay teaches metabolism through familiar storylines. Using ubiquitous story plots such as rags to riches, quest, voyage and return, and the hero’s journey, the plotline McKinlay applies storytelling to his own comics about E. coli. These familiar plotlines make concepts easier to digest. He says that even if students don’t know he’s using them, at a Photo: James Brosher, Indiana University

Miquéla Thornton subconscious level, the familiarity promotes an extent of understanding which might be harder to achieve via the more common lecture-based plots. Throughout the workshop, McKinlay also gave the students tips and advice for their own work, getting their work out there, discussed storytelling and content strategies and boundaries, and traded creating techniques with the students. While discussing content strategies and boundaries, he presented the students with questions they should ask themselves as they begin to create their own stories with science. The overarching theme of self-interrogation questioned how far one should stray from precision and actuality for the sake of communication? Will you obey an exact scale when drawing on a molecular scale? In McKinlay’s own intestine drawing below, this intestine is supposed to contain 100,000,000,000 cells per milliliter of intestinal fluid, in addition to mucus and undigested cellulose. And while all of that would be a lot to draw, McKinlay says that there are ways to add layers and show all of that complexity while not underselling its importance to microbiology. However, personally, McKinlay takes a lot of liberties simply because it’s quite hard to fathom how small these organisms are. SciArtists and storytellers must also ask themselves if they will anthropomorphize their subjects. Giving human traits to these subjects is a simple way to naturally get readers invested. Some artists take liberties to add comically drawn sound-effects like “Doink!” “Pow!” and “Woosh!” to their strips in order to add personality to the scene, while others chose to add faces to their subjects to make a microbe-like bacteria more relatable, and thus possibly increase understanding. Some artists go as far as to create their subjects into human characters with figures and emotions. In one cartoon, Cells at Work, the cells, personified as people, live in a city that is a human body. The city is attacked by pathogens portrayed as monsters. Here they are highly personified. While McKinlay is personally okay with putting faces on subjects, his collaborator argues that we should not convey that bacteria have emotions or make decisions. Therefore artists must ask themselves if they are willing to go to that level of personification for the sake of communication and reader investment. Aside from weaving stories into lectures, he has also created animations for the University’s Science Fest and has a graphic novel in the works. In the future, he wants to create a coloring book, a storybook for kids, and strengthen his animation skills. In both creating a storybook and tailoring his artwork and lectures towards younger audiences, McKinlay hopes to make microbiology approachable to all. In educating the next generation of SciArtists at ArtLab’s workshop, the same goal may have been sparked in them.

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E X PLOR ING THE BUSINE S S SIDE OF SCIAR T Miquéla Thornton

n June 29, Claudia Stocker, owner of Vivid Biology led an ArtLab AiR Workshop. Stocker, a science illustrator herself, started Vivid Biology in an effort to combine her artistic and scientific passions into a business. According to Stocker, Vivid Biology makes science stand out. The company does artwork, diagrams, science-inspired product design. In the workshop, she began by discussing her creative journey. By having the opportunity to study natural sciences and art on separate occasions and freelancing after graduation in graphic art and design, she realized pretty early on that her passion was doing art for scientists. Thus, she shifted her focus towards a way to combine her interests into a stable career. Eventually, she found herself partnering with scientists and science-based companies to create art. Along her path, she found ways to develop her art and illustration skills. She also found ways to turn her creative passion into a business. After taking on other jobs such as commission-based work and public art creation, she founded Vivid Biology in 2018. In order to learn more about the landscape of public engagement, she is currently pursuing a master’s in science communication. In the last half of the workshop, she also clued ArtLab’s artists-in-residence in on key tools of the trade. These tools included art and creation tips, such as how she creates traditional artwork, digital illustration, whiteboard animations, or how she deals with larger images. However, Stocker also gave the residents useful business insight, such as tools for bookkeeping, online retail, company communication, and project management. Moreover, she shared the overall creative process of new projects, by overviewing Vivid Biology’s case studies. The examples

were complete with the initial assignment, preliminary ideas and sketches, what client communication was like, detailed concepts, and finally the end results. One project she discussed was an assignment to create advertising artwork for TUNR, a flexible gene-editing system. TUNR allows researchers to fine-tune gene expression. It does this by inserting DNA sequences before the gene that cause the ribosome to stall or fall off during translation. The longer the sequence, the less likely the ribosome is to complete transcription. Essentially, the technology allows one to dial up and down genes much like a volume control. Thus, according to Stocker, the company really liked the idea of incorporating music into the advertising. Many of the initial sketches focused on music and instruments, including an RNA harp, a conductor directing an orchestra of ribosomes, and a DJ deck with RNA and DNA soundwaves. The latter later became the final artwork. The purpose of the advertising artwork is to give an idea of what the product does, but as Claudia informed the residents, “you also have to be wary of the associations you’re giving.” For example, the gramophone image might give the impression that TUNR is not a particularly cutting edge product. The sketches, concept art, and final piece is pictured below. A very similar process was undergone for the Bristol Biodesign Institute, who wanted a piece of public artwork as part of the University of Bristol iconic signage project. The image below is a final piece of artwork created for Bristol Biodesign Institute. The University of Bristol wanted to put up totems around the city to show where their eight research institutions were located. Stocker had the chance to design the art for the Biodesign Institution. Tasked with the strange shape of

HOW A PASSION FOR SCIENTIFIC ARTWORK CAN BE MONETIZED OR CREATED INTO A BUSINESS.

long skinny totems (25 centimeters wide and 3 meters tall), she started by working out how to design using the unusual aspect ratio. She also chatted with researchers at the institute to get an idea of what the researchers were doing, and created blueprints based on the interviews. After creating multiple concepts, they agreed on a final design, which depicts a big cell and molecules, built up and filled in with proteins. Now, the image is up outside of the building in Bristol. Not only did the residents gain valuable insight as to how to monetize their sciart endeavors, but also learned much about the business of sciart and the type of work they may do as a commercial sciartist.

CL AU D IA STOCK ER , OWN ER O F V I V I D BI O LO GY, LE ADS AN AR TL AB AI R WO R K SH O P W W W.V I V ID BIO LO GY.CO M

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The social media, career and literary potential of scientific creative endeavors.

Working in science communication encompasses a variety of careers, from traditional journalism, working for scientific journals to public outreach. Careers exist for general interest scientific publications, universities, federal agencies, and even textbook writing. Effective science communication is critical to having a positive impact on the way science is viewed by the public. As aprt of the AiR program students were exposed to social media and enagagment stratagies as a way of sparking thier interest and intentionality when it comes to science outreach.

SCIAR T, SCISO CI AL S , AN D SCI KU Miquéla Thornton

n July 12, ArtLab’s artists-in-residence got the chance to explore two different facets of sciart, poetry and the potential to apply their skills to both social media and potential careers. Duke University Assistant Professor Lawrence David kicked it off. David’s research revolves around human-associated microbial ecosystems as well as the intersection of nutrition and the microbiome. His scientific research is also applied to an artistic endeavor: poetry. He discussed his website SciKu, a collection of illustrated science poetry. David began the journal in 2010 when he and friends were finishing graduate school. At the time, they were fascinated by how their lives were being distilled down into papers. For example, 5 years of research and experimenting could be easily condensed into a short manuscript. So they came up with a challenge: what if their research lives could be distilled further into something even shorter. Thus, they created SciKu with the objective to showcase science condensed into 3-line haikus. David said the project allows scientists and submitters to appreciate the creative and visual elements of science. Others in the scientific community had similar ideas. Now #SciKu has a vast number of posts on both Twitter and Instagram.

Much like poetry, social media also promotes appreciation for the distillation of science, particularly through visual medium. Karisa Calvitti, the Social Media Coordinator for VI4 and VUMC Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology led the second portion of the workshop. Her presentation was on the intersection between science communication and social media, and focused on the platforms Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. “Twitter has a vast professional science community”, Calvitti said. “It’s really useful for conveying scientific information because of how decentralized it is; it provides a connected space to interact with people in all different fields without getting siloed into one.” In addition, it can connect scientific individuals with people outside of the science community, thus breaking barriers in communicating science. Moreover, Twitter has the potential to grow one’s professional environment, according to Calvitti. Unlike Twitter, Instagram is less pure science-focused and more about artwork and community outreach. This platform is ideal for sciartists like the ArtLab’s artists-in-residence, because it is ideal for visually heavy fields. It can be used for sciart, graphics, reels (short videos) and informational visualizations such as the ones Calvitti and her colleagues made to promote the COVID-19 vaccine.

Separately, Calvitti described LinkedIn as the “professional version of Facebook.” “It’s a great place to not only show your work, but you can talk about what you’ve learned on a project, and challenges you’ve had and how you grew,” she said. Not only can it be a general communication tool for science, but it can be utilized as a place for the artists-in-residence to network, focus on their professional personas, and potentially obtain a career in science communication or sciart. When one Googles potential careers in these fields, the first that will pop up are jobs such as communications specialist, editor, freelance science journalist and other traditional paths. While these are all great options, Calvitti emphasized that they are not the only ones. For example, she currently works as a social media coordinator and there are other art-driven careers like graphic designer, video producer and web designer needed within the sciences. “Even though these titles don’t scream science communication, now the industry needs those types of people to convey the science,” she said, “If you are very creative, have that niche and know how to do that kind of work, there are companies like pharmaceutical companies, universities, science publications, etc. that are now needing these kinds of people.”

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SUMMER 20 2 1

IN THE THIR D I T ER AT IO N OF TH E VI 4 AI R PR OGR AM , WE H AV E MADE G R E AT ST R I DE S F OR WAR DS . WE E X PAN D ED T HE PR O G R AM NAT IONALLY WI TH TH E SU PP OR T OF T H E BU R R O U GHS WELLCOME F U N D. WE P U BLISH ED M OR E

Kendra H. Oliver

iR OU TCOME S

ST U D EN T S ' WOR K A S COVER AR T, I N CLU DED I T WI TH IN PAPER MANUSCR IP T S, AN D I N TE GR ATED TH EI R AR T I N TO L AB SOCIAL M EDIA AN D C OM M U N I CATI ONS . A S ALWAYS , WE SEEK TO IM PR OVE OU R PR OGR AM M I N G TO MA X I MIZ E IM PACT.

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e began the VI4 artist-in-residence program assuming that when art and science intersect, new ideas and approaches and innovation within and between fields will occur. We believe that fostering crossdisciplinary opportunities impacts the mindsets and approaches of all involved. Our mission as a program is to cultivate a meaningful, equitable, and multidisciplinary community through an entirely virtual experience that enhances the impact of cutting-edge research through art. We provide an avenue to develop skillsets in science communication and outreach and instigate artistic and scientific creativity across all career stages. Based on the survey and outcomes from the first year of funding from the BWF expansion grant, we have demonstrated the impactfulness and unique creative opprotunitiy that our program offers. The VI4 Artist-in-Residence program is an opportunity for artists and scientists to explore innovative means of science communication. We characterize the residency as an artistic collaboration within a research environment context that exclusively occurs through remote interactions. Artists create artwork related to the laboratories' research. Ideally, art will be included in manuscripts, submitted as cover art, or used to promote the laboratory on websites, social media, and other public-facing platforms. In addition to the laboratories promoting the artists' work, these collaborations may also be featured at VI4 events (e.g. MEGAMicrobe, VI4 Annual Symposium) and other exhibitions sponsored by BWF, ArtLab, VU, and/or VUMC. The Artist-in-Residence program occurs over a relatively short 10-week period. This rapid timeline necessitates setting clear expectations to maximize productive interactions between participants. Participants are expected to reach the benchmarks and provide progress reports each week. Scientists and artists will also meet weekly to provide feedback on the project and develop a promotion plan. These deliverables will serve as nucleation points to facilitate discussions regarding the artistic process, scientific methodology, and the meaning of the research findings. Overall we have three main goals in providing this programming. The first goal is for students to create visual scientific art based on cutting-edge research. Second, we aim to submit this work as cover art, included in manuscripts, or promote the lab's research via social media. Finally, our last goal is to have all student work included in a digital exhibition that showcases the program's impact.

Recruitment The VI4 team generated applications in REDcap for both faculty and students' applications. Emails were sent out to the past few years BWF young investigator award applicants to recruit the

inaugural group of faculty program participants. The final faculty participants were selected to maximize diversity and representation across the country from multiple institutions. Additionally, another 12 Vanderbilt University faculty members were recruited and supported through VI4 fundings. In January, student recruitment began when emails were sent to colleges and programs from the selected faculties institutions and through existing art-science networks. Overall, we recruited 22 faculty members: 12 for the VI4 Vanderbilt artist-in-residence program and 10 for the BWF artistin-residence program. The 10 BWF faculty members were chosen from a pool of 16 applications. The faculty that participated were from Yale University, Columbia University, MIT, Duke University, Washington University in St. Louis, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Center, The Medical College of Wisconsin, the University of California Merced, and the University of Wisconsin Madison. This group represented two Assistants, three Associate, and five Full Professors. The program was able to support 30 students: 12 from Vanderbilt University and 18 from the BWF. There was a total of five sophomores, eleven juniors, and fourteen seniors. Initially, we recruited 20 students to the BWF programming, but two students could not complete the summer programming due to other summer obligations. The Vanderbilt students were matched one-to-one with faculty members from Vanderbilt. The BWF students were matched two-to-one with faculty members from the BWF faculty cohort. The 20 BWF students were chosen from a pool of 36 external applications. The final set of students represented a variety of institutions, including the University of Tennessee Knoxville, Johnson & Wales University, Ohio Northern University, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Tufts University, Yale University, University of Florida, Sewanee: The University of the South, Indiana University, Bloomington (3), Scripps College (2), Duke University, Washington University in St Louis, Bowdoin College, Fisk University, and Hampton University.

Programming Each week there were two components to the summer programming. First, students were given the opportunity to attend workshops that complemented and expanded the student's network in art science. Week 1, AiR alumna Eve Moll, currently a medical student at the University of Washington, St. Louis, introduced the intersection of Art and Medicine. Week 2, another AiR alumnus, Jacob Steenwyk, currently a graduate student in the Biological Sciences department at Vanderbilt University, presented the junction between art and biological sciences. Week 3 students heard about visual storytelling and teaching with Dr. Jake McKinlay, professor at the University of Indiana. Next, during

Screen

captures from virtual social gallery

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week 4, students had the opportunity to hear about graphic design with VividBiology’s Claudia Stocker. During week 5, there was no workshop because of the Fourth of July holiday. Week 6 was on social media with VI4 social media coordinator Karisa Calvitti and BWF faculty participant Lawrence David. Week 7 was on illustration with Lizah van der Aart. Finally, the last workshop was on week 9 on Science video with Stephanie Castillo, a Ph.D. candidate in science communication at Vanderbilt University. Each week students also met with program directors based on the prompts to be filled out by the students through a google forms submission. During the first week, students were asked to introduce themselves and submit an introductory video to FlipGrid. By Week 2, students were to have submitted an initial project description discussed and agreed upon with their faculty mentor. For week 3, students created a formalized plan for the program and submitted a project outline. For weeks 4, 5, and 6, students gave updates on their projects and submitted progress updates with FlipGrid. During week 7, we did a mid-program critique, and students were asked to submit comments on at least five other students' work via FlipGrid. Over the next few weeks, students finalized their submissions. On week 8, they submitted artist statements, on week 9, they submitted the final art pieces, and on week 10, we did an internal review of the virtual exhibition and presentations.

Student evaluations and program response All students submitted a final program review along with their final art pieces. When asked, “Did you enjoy your artist-in-residence experience?” and asked to select a value between 0 (no) and 100 (yes). An overwhelming number of students responded positively, with an average value of 88.03 and a standard deviation of 17.77. Students were both optimistic about the workshops with comments like, "I learned a lot of new things not only from my mentor but from the different artists that spoke about their respective areas of art and how we could do them as well". Another student said, "It was an incredible way to meet people who had similar interests as me in art and science, and I learned a lot from the workshops I could attend!". When asked what their favorite aspect of the summer AiR program was, students had a variety of responses. Some students mentioned specific workshop talks. Many students mentioned working with laboratories that they were partnered with and learning more about their science. Yet others mentioned the freedom that they had to create artwork. In particular, several students mentioned that they appreciated the format of the program that allowed them to complete the program while also doing other summer opportunities. In general, most artists seemed to have a positive experience working with their mentors. For example, one student said, "I enjoyed collaborating with my mentor, who is very supportive

of my work." However, some students did mention issues in communicating with their mentors. Overall, in future years the program can take a more active role in supporting communication between students and faculty members. When asked, "Did you find the artist-in-residence experience valuable?" and asked to select a value between 0 (no) and 100 (yes). An overwhelming number of students responded positively, with an average value of 90.61 and a standard deviation of 13.36. For example, one student said, “I found it extremely valuable because I got to work on reconnecting with art and learning about things I didn't know of before.” Another student said, “I enjoyed it a lot! It exposed me to so many different creative people and their work and allowed me to see how they incorporated both science and art into their daily lives. It was very inspiring to see”. Next year, we plan to address this by clarifying funding for supplies, expediting the award process, and consolidating meetings. Student comments support this. For instance, one student said, "I really enjoyed the concept of this program, but I wish there had been more details given about funding for supplies (which was mentioned in the acceptance letter) and fewer meetings." There is also a greater interest from students in learning specific skills sets. For instance, one student said, "I wished I had a bit more interaction with my mentor. I was also expecting for there to be more technical workshops learning techniques in software". Additionally, moving forward, we will continue to streamline the programming so that it directly fits within the program goals. We will be modifying the weekly assignments and forms to not distract from the overall student project. We will also work to find better ways for students to keep track and report on their progress. This includes continuing to communicate with both mentors and students about roles and responsibilities. Additionally, we will find more ways for the students to connect, particularly with the online format.

Faculty evaluations and program response Faculty were asked to complete a post-program evaluation; however, only five faculty members completed this evaluation even after multiple prompts. However, based on this limited set of responses, we have attempted to highlight both positive and negative experiences. When asked, "Did you enjoy your artist-in-residence experience as a mentor" and asked to select a value between no (0) and yes (100), the average response was 95 with a standard deviation of 11.18. Many responses were overwhelmingly positive. For example, one mentor said, “It was fantastic. I have always loved art but have no artistic talent. It was great to think creatively with a true artist about visual scientific communication.” However, there is also room for improvement. For instance, another mentor said,

“It was sometimes hard to schedule meetings with the artists, but when we could, things were great.” When asked, “Did you find the artist-in-residence experience valuable?” and asked to select a value between no (0) and yes (100), the average response was 95.80 with a standard deviation of 9.39. Overall, the mentors seemed to appreciate the creative nature of the program. For example, one mentor said, “These interactions helped me formulate ideas and approaches to presenting concepts that we discuss routinely in the lab.” Another mentor said, “It was a chance for us to have our ideas put into art. I love science art and lab logos, and now we have multiple pieces to decorate our conference room with and perhaps even

get a journal cover.” When asked, "Did you enjoy working with your assigned student?" and asked to select a value between no (0) and yes (100), the average response was 93.40 with a standard deviation of Overall, the only reservations from the faculty were related to issues with communication. We also noted this frustration in the student evaluations. Moving forward, we will place a higher emphasis on supporting student-mentor communication and provide additional resources and structure for students to build communication skills.

R E CRU I T MEN T STAR T IN G SOON

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