Science and art are often portrayed as distinct subjects — sometimes even at odds — but this year’s Beckman Image Contest winners show that this couldn’t be further from the truth. From capturing dramatic landscapes to imaging tiny cells, these scientists use art to showcase, investigate and even conduct their research.

Each spring, the Beckman Institute hosts a research image contest open to both members of the Beckman community and external researchers who have used Beckman's facilities. The most recent winning images are displayed in the Beckman Atrium, and past winners can be seen around the building and throughout the community.

This year's winning images are:

Cellular Wonderland

To better visualize complex biological structures such as cells, researchers use techniques such as fluorescence imaging. With this method, the cell is stained with different fluorescent dyes, which color different parts of the cell’s intricate architecture: in this case, the cytoskeleton is red, the nuclei are blue and the plasma membrane is green.

This image was taken by Ekangika Mahanti, a neuroscience undergraduate.

The Web that Protects Pancreatic Cancer

Collagen (red) and fibrin (green) are both proteins that naturally exist outside of cells and support them. However, in certain cancers — such as pancreatic cancer — these proteins become abnormally abundant, which drives tumor progression and impedes drug delivery to the tumors. 

“Here, we recreate this fibrous environment to understand how these proteins work together to build a dense barrier that can protect tumors from chemotherapy,” said photographer Seamus Mellican, a graduate student in the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering. “By visualizing this protective web, we reveal a hidden obstacle in cancer treatment and highlight why designing better therapies requires understanding not just the cancer cells, but the environment that shields them.”

Tai Josek, microscopist in Beckman’s Microscopy Suite, provided imaging assistance. 

Lightning and Lightning Bugs 

This photograph of fireflies beneath a lightning bolt was taken by Juniper Cournoyer, manager of the Visualization Laboratory. Cournoyer describes this image as a case study for using a state-of-the-art sensor, which allowed the dramatically different types of brightness to be captured in this image.

“Usually, when we talk about advanced imaging techniques, we mean optics: magnification, resolution, focus and zoom,” Cournoyer said. “Optically, my picture is unremarkable. Instead, it's unique because of everything that happens after the lens, like dynamic range, color fidelity and spectral response. The camera sensor measures the visible spectrum more accurately than a normal Bayer filter in most digital cameras. So, the end result is an image where subtle natural hues are captured more faithfully to how we experience them in real life.”   

Better than BANKSY

This image of a mouse brain cortex maps how genes are expressed throughout the tissue, revealing anatomical boundaries and subtle biological gradients that other leading techniques do not have the ability to capture. The title references one such method — Building Aggregates with a Neighborhood Kernel and Spatial Yardstick, or BANKSY — in addition to the well-known street artist Banksy. The image was created as a collaboration between Laura Hetrick, a professor of art and design, and Sihai Dave Zhao, a professor of statistics.

“By converting spatial transcriptomics data to visual art elements and then applying image manipulation filters using GIMP, we were able to surface these patterns through a different mode of analysis,” Hetrick said. “The significance of this work is that it shows visual art is not just a way to present science, but a way to do science: generating hypotheses, revealing hidden structures and expanding how we interpret complex biological data.” 

This collaboration was made possible by Gene Robinson at the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, who connected the researchers. Since submission to the photo contest, Hetrick and Zhao have completed a scientific paper manuscript titled “Art Informs Science: Visual Design as Data Analysis” featuring this image as a data figure, which is currently under review.