Some art projects happen with relatively little fuss and yet are so important. Art Under the Microscope, presented by Culture at Work space is one of those important projects that seeks to bring artists and scientists together and see what happens. In this case something a little bit wonderful happened, with breast cancer researcher David Gallego-Ortega of the Garvan Institute showing photographs of his research.
The photo above is known as “The Boat” – Cytokeratin staining in a normal breast tissue 400x.
(This post is more than a little belated, so apologies on that front)
Gallego-Ortega, not content to let people stare idly into the strange world of human tissue and cancer cells, first gave a talk on the science behind cancer. It was eye opening, to say the least. This short and fascinating talk was followed by a showing of his slides examining the histology of various stages of cancer progression.
First off were the basic, time tested stained slides of cancerous and non-cancerous cells.
Hematoxylin-Eosin staining in a breast tumour 200x
Second from left: Normal mammary gland cross sectional cut 400x
Next were some more hi-tech fluorescent targeted examples which highlighted specific proteins that aids researchers and pathologists in cell classification and disease diagnosis.
From left: Genetically modified breast cancer cell line expressing (GFP). Proliferative cells (red) in a tumour 400x. Proliferative cells (red) in a engineered with line expressing (GFP) 100x.
Thank you David, and thank you Culture at Work – it is rare that we get to learn something genuinely interesting and look at art. That nice drop of pinot didn’t hurt either. Get yourself to the next Culture at Work event and you’ll be happy that you did.
See the Culture at Work website.
Hit the Culture at Work Facebook page.
Read about previous projects at Kingdom of the Bind.
Until next time.
