HIV vaccine (detail) Lizzie Burns

You might expect to find the quirky strokes of cyan, magenta, or burnt sienna in Lizzie Burns's paintings hanging in a trendy gallery. But the former 29 year old cancer researcher from Oxford University hopes her artworks, illustrating the tiny universe of cells, molecules, and viruses, will inspire children to think about medical science and eventually draw them into the spectacular world of medicine. You can see how a purple-blue nubile cell turns renegade all of a sudden, paving the way to cancer, or crimson and ochre tangles of tissues show the inside of a brain ravaged by Alzheimer's disease.

"Medicine is usually viewed as dry and inaccessible, but people are often surprised to see that it can be so fascinating," says Burns who has chosen to be a scientist-artist as well as an educator. "My aim is to bridge the widening chasm between science and arts and provide an insight into how science is done and reveal what motivates scientists, particularly biomedical researchers, to pursue their research."

Burns recently travelled around India with 20 pieces of her artwork as part of a project called Medical Research Revealed. Five Indian cities--New Delhi, Chandigarh, Mangalore, Bangalore, and Calcutta--recently hosted the roving exhibition of Burns's paintings which offer a stunning visual interpretation of cutting edge research carried out by the Medical Research Council, the United Kingdom's biggest sponsor of biomedical research. The works on display, commissioned by the council, included tiny molecular events which British researchers watch every day, in their efforts to look out for treatments for critical disease and understand the workings of the human body.

Inspirations

The paintings displayed at the British Council in Calcutta drew a huge crowd, mostly children. "Children are my real target because they are so interested and enthusiastic," explains Lizzie. As a child, Burns was fascinated by small creatures. Her dad, a biology teacher, encouraged little Burns and ignited a lifelong passion for medical science. Her mum, an eminent photographer, inspired her to describe the story of the world around her through a paintbrush and colours.

Fostered at the edge of science and arts Lizzie was determined to cross the boundary between the "two cultures"--arts and sciences. So when she peered into the secret beauty of the cancerous cells at Ed Southern's laboratory in the Department of Biochemistry in Oxford, she decided to paint them.

She recalls how excited she was when she saw the regular biological event of cell division dramatically switching over to a runaway division, better known as cancer: "It's an irony that cancerous growth looks so fascinating under the microscope with the birth of each new cell."

Her resulting piece of creative artwork attracted several biochemical journals, as well as the communication team at the Medical Research Council. The organisation--which has a mission to promote public engagement with medical research--realised the tremendous educational potential in Burns's paintings and commissioned her to produce a series of artworks based on the research funded by the council.

Here comes the science

A typical assignment would begin with Burns visiting a research team to interview the scientists and peer into their study findings to gain insight into their particular area of research. "Then my challenge was to communicate the complex scientific details visually, making it relevant and accessible to a wide audience, especially children," explains Burns.

Visits to biochemistry labs across the United Kingdom exposed Lizzie to a fantastic array of microscopic beauty such as the subtle movement of intercellular fluids, transmission of electric signals in the brain, rupturing blood vessels, and vibrations of the eardrum. Although the microscope images looked pretty lifeless in the beginning, they fired her imagination.

First she created a three-dimensional replica of the molecular events in plaster of Paris and exposed it to different shades of light. Then she painted the image as oil on panels peppered with subtle interpretations. For example, when she painted the latching on of the HIV viruses inside the body's immune system, she used symbolic colours like black to depict evil. The viruses are made to vaguely resemble demons launching themselves into a land of sunshine from a pale green horizon.

Children's reactions

But, how do children react to her visual interpretations? When 20 of her paintings were first displayed at the Salford Museum and Art Gallery, last year, Lizzie felt the pulse of young students. "The children were so interested and enthusiastic," she recalls. "They were thrilled to see something so different--there was a real buzz of excitement at the gallery."

Last month when Burns's exhibits were shown in India she got a similar reaction from Indian schoolchildren. "Throughout the tour in India I found students asking me very intelligent and interesting questions," she says. "I actually found the adults who sat in silence and were reluctant to ask any question in case they look foolish, rather difficult to talk to in comparison."

Enthused by the children's reaction, Burns ran a few workshops in a couple of schools in New Delhi. She was amazed to find how easily all the students took on the idea of painting the world of disease and the microscopic details of human anatomy. "The images they produced were very original and they naturally related to the subjects, such as the idea of viruses attacking and malarial parasite penetrating the red blood cells," says Burns.

She thinks her efforts inspire students who would normally find science dull: "Your paintings make the scientific things so nice and lively. Why do our textbook pictures look so boring?" asked an 11 year old girl, Kanika Vohra, after attending Lizzie's workshop at Vasant Valley School in New Delhi.

In the interactive workshop, Lizzie would pass microscope images of bacteria and viruses among groups of students who were encouraged to draw their pictures from their imagination. Kanika's watercolour image of triplanian virus was so good that Burns requested the student to donate it to the Medical Research Revealed project.

Heart attack (detail) Lizzie Burns

Encouraging future doctors

Lizzie had a memorable response while visiting St Ann's Convent School in Mangalore where many students were keen to chat about her pictures of malaria. "Almost everyone had previously had the disease, and they were fascinated to see how the parasite gulped red blood cells," says Lizzie. "Some of them are now interested in pursuing a career in medicine just because they want to find out ways to defeat killer parasite."

"Children possess an enormous potential to enrich the future healthcare system of a country," says Diptendra Kumar Sarkar, fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh, and a medical educator affiliated to the surgery department of the Seth Sukhlal Karnani Memorial Hospital, Calcutta. "Dr Lizzie Burn's efforts can work wonders in countries like India where infectious diseases like malaria and tuberculosis are rampant." According to Sarkar, who sneaked out from his busy schedule to take a peek at the exhibition, more schoolchildren should be exposed to Burn's works:
"The doctor patient ratio is extremely poor in this populous nation, and we need more fresh minds in medicine." He added, "Lizzie's works can inspire more children to study medicine."

Such encouraging responses have made Burns promise to come back to India and visit more schools. It has also inspired her to forsake cancer research and pursue educating children using her novel method of scientific communication. "I won't be going back to research because this is what I enjoy far more and means much more to me," she explains. Recently Lizzie has been commissioned by the Medical Research Council to run a project in 12 middle schools as a novel way of involving young students in the medical session of the British Association Festival of Science in Exeter.

Blood clot (detail) Lizzie Burns

Catch them young

Lizzie Burns thinks that preteens (between 8 and 11 years old) are the target age group if you want to trigger a love for science: "At this tender age, children are most creative and open-minded. The idea is to catch them young and infuse in them a life long passion for medical science."

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