Louis Hughes in Nature:
Biologist Louise Hughes heads the bio-imaging unit at Oxford Brookes University in the UK. Also a multimedia artist, she makes labwork-inspired jewellery — including gold pieces based on structures such as the hepatitis virus. Here she talks electron microscopy, centrioles and chromosome earrings.
I have always considered microscopy images and data to be beautiful. During my master’s degree in biological electron microscopy, I learned how to take images using negative plates and film — the use of modern digital cameras in an electron microscope is relatively recent. I see electron microscopy as another form of photography, just using a rather complicated camera. Art and science are both ways of looking at the world. How we use images and produce the graphics that explain our interpretation of the information we receive differs between the two disciplines, but there is a process that is similar.
You make 3D objects based on microscopic images for research and outreach, and also as jewellery?
I use a combination of techniques, including microscopy, digital modelling and 3D printing, and make adjustments until I have created the item I want. For outreach I generally make large plastic printed models, as close a replica of the 3D data as I can manage. For jewellery, I print the model in wax using a 3D printer (for the ‘lost wax’ casting method), which ensures a high level of detail. At the moment my favourite metal to work with is bronze: I feel the colour and weight create really striking items. I use microscopic structures in jewellery because they are aesthetically satisfying, and also universally human: at the cellular/organelle level there is no difference in race, sexual orientation, religion, country, wealth. We all have the same cellular components. Viruses can infect any one of us. My personal favourites are centrioles and axonemes — micro-tube structures found in cells. These beautiful, fascinating, endlessly complex biological structures apply across a wide range of organisms and kingdoms. I am now expanding the range to incorporate structures such as organelles and macromolecules. My awe at this amazing miniature architecture is not going to diminish any time soon.
More here.