The Biophysical Society's Annual Art of Science Image Contest took place online this year, during the 65th Annual Meeting. The first place winning image was submitted by Rachel Fisher, a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Shana Elbaum-Garfinkle Lab at the City University of New York Advanced Science Research Center. Fisher took some time to provide information about the image and the science it represents.
How did you compose this image?
I took the images used to compose my final picture on a confocal microscope. I research liquid-liquid phase separation: biomolecules separating like oil from water to form liquid compartments within cells. I try and study this from the simplest point of view possible by using homopolymers, repeating chains of amino acids or RNA. I want to understand how different components behave by measuring emergent material properties like viscosity and surface tension and then seeing how phases with these different properties will interact. I combine polymers together in different ratios or orders and compare the outcome.
My final image is a combination of six confocal microscopy images taken from different times or different concentrations of starting materials. In some cases, I see stable co-existing multi-phases, other times I see droplets being destroyed and a single-phase dominating.
What do you love about this image? Or, what about this image made you submit it for the contest?
I love the vibrancy of this image and the simplicity. By mixing together three components under slightly different conditions I can create vastly different landscapes. The patterns I see are never identical and always changing. In general, I love fluorescent dyes and I love microscopy because it’s very immediate. You get to observe fascinating things in real time on a scale most people don’t ever get to look at.
What do you want viewers to see/think when they view this image?
When people look at this image, I want them to think about how complex and varied liquids can look and/or behave. This amount of variety is from a system with just three components, a phase separated droplet in a cell is composed of tens or hundreds of components, significantly more complex.
How does this image reflect your scientific research?
Some of these images are directly taken from my latest publication!
Can you please provide a few real-world examples of your research?
Proteins that phase separate are being found all over. Proteins involved in neurodegeneration can phase separate, proteins involved in gene expression, in transcription. Even Covid-19 proteins phase separate. Understanding the mechanisms governing phase separation of biomolecules could be relevant to a lot of different fields.
Do you have a website where our readers can view your recent research?
I am a postdoc in Shana Elbaum-Garfinkle’s lab at the CUNY Advanced Science Research Center. Our lab website with more pictures and information about our research is here: https://selbaum.ws.gc.cuny.edu/