Haystack in a Heart Cell is a hands-on collage workshop exploring the fascinating research being done by heart scientists to understand the vast amount of complex information contained in each individual heart cell.
We collaborated with illustrator and artist Grace Holliday to develop a creative workshop using collage and paper craft.
Participants cut out their heart cell, then decorated it with RNA and proteins - the gene expression of the cell.
The information about how genes are expressed in each tiny cell is an enormously large and complex set of information - the haystack in the heart cell! It is this gene expression information that scientists are using to understand more about heart cells.
Once people had completed their heart cell, we took photos of each one and combined all the cells to make a whole digital heart. Can you spot the special golden cardiac stem cells?
Haystack in a Heart Cell was presented at the Imperial Festival 2017.
Collaborators: Grace Holliday (Illustrator and Artist), Michela Noseda (Research Fellow).
Creative Producer: Ellen Dowell
Contacts
Ellen Dowell
Public Engagement Officer
e.dowell@imperial.ac.uk