JANE'S ADVENTURES IN LAB LAND UPDATE

I just thought I'd keep you all updated on my work at Medimmune. Recently I have been working with the very patient Miguel Carvalho who has been helping me to create some work that is drawn with bacteria on agar jelly and as the bacteria grows it expresses a fluorescent green protein. Making my drawings grow and glow! I have some images here in black and white that are taken by a machine in the Lab but I have the help of the very talented Jon Large to take photographic images to capture the glowing green colour of them for the final piece.

This is a test image just to try and capture the glow, looks great doesn't it?!

 

CROCHETING "BACTERIA"

 I thought it was time I updated my blog as I have been remiss in doing so lately. I have, however, been very busy in my studio. I am currently crocheting these "bacteria" (- allow me a little artistic license). I have made approximately 50 and have almost as many still to make. This is a lot of fiddly work but I am happy with the effect they are creating. I have also been updating my sketchbook and working on ideas as you can see below.

JANES ADVENTURES IN LAB LAND: PART 6

I have just got back from two weeks holiday and thought I aught to give an update on my last visit to MedImmune as I will be going again shortly.
 I had a great day, as always, meeting up with wonderful people I had already worked with, particularly Lesley Jenkinson, and meeting new similarly brilliant scientists who taught me even more fascinating stuff. My great appreciation goes to Miguel Carvalho, who was unbelievably patient and clear when explaining things to me and seemed really enthusiastic and excited by what I wanted to do. I will be returning to the Lab with Miguel soon for some really exciting experiments with bacteria that express a fluorescent protein!!!
I also had a great meeting with Jon Large and Julia Johnston that will hopefully lead to a professional display area in reception for staff to see what I am up to.

DRAWING ANTIBODIES, PEPTIDES AND OTHER MICROSCOPIC TREASURES

  Yesterday was spent crocheting more wire and doing some drawings to help process ideas and just getting inspired! The drawing on the top left is a development from the earlier sketch I did inspired by the computer displays shown in the photos further down, but this time I have added a chain of beads/peptide symbol. The attack taking place in the image at the top right is made up of antibodies and the bottom drawing is a combination of ideas.

I was looking back at some of the photos I took around the lab last time too...

Love these netted glass canisters...

and more from the coloured tape.....

THE NEXT INSTALMENT OF : JANE'S ADVENTURES IN LAB LAND

Yet again  a wonderfully informative and surprisingly visual visit to MedImmune, last week, has led to several more pages of notes and sketches in my notebook. I had a great meeting with Jefferson Revell and his team in Peptide Chemistry. I am particularly fascinated by their use of 

coloured tape to indicate different samples or experiments as they travel round the lab. I managed to get some samples here in my notebook and I intend to create a colour map of the route they take around the room, not too dissimilar to a tube map with the different areas or processes being the stops along the route. 
I also met Rob Howes who spent some time showing me around another lab and different equipment as well as explaining what it is they do. Plus, I got to spend the afternoon with the lovely Lesley Jenkins in that same lab shadowing her while she did an experiment. We had a great chat, she was really enthusiastic when I told her I had an idea to get any staff who knit (Lesley is one of those) involved in making a piece of work with me. I haven't come up with the idea of exactly what we are going to make but I just love the idea of involving the staff, especially as I hear from Lesley there is already quite a strong knitting contingent there!
My knitted wire cells are coming on; I am hoping to create a galaxy of them, so there are still plenty more to make but they are looking good so far and I feel confident they will look good suspended.

 This a new idea that I have to give Lesley some credit for. After I said I would like to use some of the equipment like those in the lab, to create work from, she showed me how these Eppendorfs - miniature test tubes - can be joined together by their lids. This gave me the idea that I could create peptides from them by filling the different tubes with coloured fluid/powder/beads and twisting them to create the helical shape of a lot of peptides. As there are only 20 naturally occurring amino acids to make up the peptides (plus a few man-made ones), it will be a nice palette of colours I can create. Now I just need to get more Eppendorfs so I can play some more.

OPERA, ANTIBODIES, MICROSCOPES AND PATHOLOGY; Part 3 of Jane's Adventures in Lab Land

 

I have been crocheting another cell since my latest visit to MedImmune at the end of last week, made of wire and beads this time. I spent time with three more fascinating scientists who showed me some truly gorgeous images of cells, their constituent parts and antibodies attaching to them and entering them!!!

Working with Caz, (Caroline Colley), I saw some beautiful images that came from the very wonderful, new, fancy microscope OPERA. Using fluorophores, (which are fluorescent chemical compounds that re-emit different coloured light when lasers are shone on them), to

mark different parts of cells and antibodies or antigens etc she and her team had been able to capture incredibly beautiful, aesthetically scrumptious images which more importantly for the scientists are amazingly useful in research towards producing treatments for a whole host of

illnesses and diseases. Caz was brilliant at explaining what she was working on, what the images showed and how the science behind it was helping medical science develop very specific treatments. She was also very funny and we had a great laugh using opera related puns at all opportunities in our

conversations. (If you read this Caz, I hope you got rid of the phantom!). I was greatly inspired by the fact that some of the images of cells looked so very similar to images of galaxies or solar systems and have a great plan to crochet a whole host of these cells and have them suspended like an astronomical galaxy or constellation!!

I was fascinated by the work that Lee Brown does  in Histology and Pathology too. I spent a very interesting time being shown round the lab and being shown how they work. It is very different to the other work I have seen at MedImmune as it is about tissue as opposed to individual cells. I loved the wax blocks they used to preserve the tiny tissue samples and the "bacon slicer" that was then used to take unbelievably thin slivers of tissue and wax off the blocks to make the slides. I think I will definitely be making some work in wax blocks too! Again I was able to spend some time looking at microscope images of different types of tissue/cells from different organs and healthy or cancerous cells. They were fascinating in their different structure even though they were less aesthetically coloured.

 I spent the afternoon with Gareth Davies, he very kindly spent ages with me trawling through microscope images of cells looking for good images of macrophages, mitosis, stroma/actin and any number of other awe inspiring minute beauties. I am waiting for some of these images to be sent to me so I can use them for inspiration, (hint, hint, Gareth), I will keep you updated as I make more work. 

Yet again a fantastic day in Lab Land with fascinating people and their awesomely inspiring work - I so love medical science!

JANE'S ADVENTURES IN LAB LAND : Second visit

 Here are some images of the equipment (not including the computer display) that inspired the dotty drawing that is now stuck in my sketchbook.

I have had another great day at MedImmune this week, I spent the morning in the lab with Dave Bannister and the team he works with. I watched them doing many different experiments, asked lots of questions, wrote lots of notes (as you can see), took lots of photo's and even got to help with one of the experiments - although I am not sure I really helped, I am sure it took me three times as long as Dave would've taken if he'd just done it himself! - and was fascinated by it all. 

I was particularly interested in work Gulin Guler-Gain was doing cutting sections out of DNA. She was very patient explaining everything to me in a manner I was able to understand.

In the afternoon I met James Legg who introduced me to the team he works with. They capture stunning colour images of the cells that are being investigated in the experiments. I am hoping to go back and spend some time in their department again next time. Yet again I was amazed by the science and overwhelmed at the friendly openess of the scientists to work with me and explain what they were doing clearly and enthusiastically.

CELLS AND TEST TUBE PLATES

 

I made the sketch on the left thinking about the blocks or plates of test tubes used in "Lab Land" and the computer displays showing results with colour indicating density. I used watercolour pencils to fill in the dots, so then in order to give them a sense of movement and life I painted over them with water so that the colours would bleed.

I have been crocheting a cell in yellow nylon fishing line with a crocheted nucleus made of red fuse wire (you might be able to spot it in the image on the right.)

Here are some drawings I have been doing in my sketchbook thinking about brain cells, mitosis, and all things microscopic.