Scientific Illustration
Overview
The Ken Poss Lab at Duke University studied how vertebrate tissues regenerate, using zebrafish to understand the process. I collaborated with fellow researchers in the lab to turn some complex scientific ideas and concepts into illustrations that could work in research papers, presentations, and journal submissions.
Challenge
Scientific illustration comes with a particular problem: the picture has to be interesting, but it also has to be accurate and informative. I was working with specialized research and detailed anatomy, so I needed to understand what researchers were trying to communicate before I could figure out how to show it. The images also needed to be suitable for global audiences within and occasionally, outside of, the scientific community.
Strategy
I spent time with researchers, dug into the science, and then looked for the simplest visual way to tell the story without losing the important details. For the zebrafish anatomy blueprint, I used the familiar language of a technical blueprint to organize a lot of anatomical information into something that felt both precise and approachable.
My Role
I collaborated with members of the Poss Lab and other labs at Duke to develop original scientific illustrations for research papers, presentations, and journal cover submissions. I translated their research and anatomical information into visual concepts, refined the work with researcher feedback, and prepared the final illustrations for their intended uses.
Results
Created illustrations used in research presentations, papers, and journal cover submissions.
Developed a detailed zebrafish anatomy blueprint design that was published in Developmental Cell Journal.
Worked with multiple researchers to translate specialized scientific concepts into clear visual stories.
Design Highlights
Published Work
Sun, F., Shoffner, A., and Poss, K. D. (2020). A genetic ablation model for the study of heart regeneration in zebrafish. Methods in Molecular Biology. 2021; 2158:71-80. doi: 10.1007/978-1-0716-068-1_7. PMID: 32857367
Shoffner, A., Cigliola, V., Lee, N., Ou, J., and Poss, K. D. (2020). Tp53 suppression promotes cardiomyocyte proliferation during zebrafish heart regeneration. Cell Reports. 2020 Sep 1;32(9):108089. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2020.108089. PMID: 32877671
Goldman JA, Poss KD. Gene Regulatory programmes of tissue regeneration.Nat Rev Genet. 2020 Jun 5. doi: 10.1038/s41576-020-0239-7. Online ahead of print. PMID: 32504079
Cigliola V, Becker CJ, Poss, KD, Building bridges, not walls: spinal cord regeneration zebrafish. Disease Models and Mechanisms. 2020 May 27;13(5):dmm0441331.doi: 10.1242/dmm.044131
Pronobis M, Poss KD. Signals for cardiomyocyte proliferation during zebrafish heart regeneration. Current Opinion in Physiology 14 (2020):78-85
Cox BD, Yun MH, Poss KD. Can laboratory model systems instruct human limb regeneration? Development. 2019 Oct 2;146(20). doi:10.1242/dev.181016
Cox BD, De Simone A, Tornini VA, Singh SP, Di Talia S, Poss KD. In Toto Imaging of Dynamic Osteoblast Behaviors in Regenerating Skeletal Bone. Curr Biol. 2018 Dec 17;28(24):3937-3947.
Goldman JA, Kuzu G, Lee N, Karasik J, Gemberling M, Foglia MJ, Karra R, Dickson AL, Sun F, Tolstorukov MY, and Poss KD. Resolving Heart Regeneration by Replacement Histone Profiling. Dev Cell 40(4):392-404.e5.