ABSTRACT
Drawing as a way of understanding things better/easier is in human nature, from textbook images through the models and graphical abstracts published in scientific papers to chalk talks during the academic job interview process. As a molecular cell biologist and geneticist, I always find it easier to show a microscopy image to engage a lay audience with the beauty of cells and explain the tremendous complexity one can extract from a single microphotograph. Unfortunately, I do not think that we as a science community are in general doing the best job at reaching out to the public and communicating what we do, why it is important and how beautiful and exciting our work is.
KEYWORDS: Autophagy, Drosophila, microscopy
Due to the increasing importance of public outreach, I wholeheartedly support initiatives such as the paper by Ayelén Valko, a student who recently completed her PhD who was so inspired by her work on starvation-induced autophagy in the larval Drosophila fat body [1] that she created eye-catching paintings resembling her own confocal and ultrastructural images. Her pictures illustrate how autophagosomes form: these are the transport vesicles that deliver cargo to lysosomes for autophagic degradation and recycling. Autophagosome formation can take place at special subdomains of the endoplasmic reticulum that are called omegasomes, where the author’s favorite protein, zda (zonda), is found. In the artist’s view of the process, omegasomes and autophagosomes are illustrated in Figure 1 of her paper. Figure 2 in her paper was inspired by the ultrastructure of autophagic vesicles in starved fat cells, where some of her representations of autophagosomes and autolysosomes bear a resemblance to developing human embryos.
I confess I myself lack the talent in art to follow such paths, but I am convinced that we should encourage our colleagues, friends and family members who have such abilities to raise interest, engage others and help in understanding our favorite topic: the process of autophagy.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Reference
- [1].Melani M, Valko A, Romero NM, et al. Zonda is a novel early component of the autophagy pathway in Drosophila. Mol Biol Cell. 2017;28(22):3070–3081. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]