While “genetics” is about your DNA and your genetic code, “epigenetics” is about how that code is read by your cells. Scientists now know that epigenetics can be affected by your diet, and even your grandmother’s diet! It also goes wrong in cancer, which is mainly what we work on. Epigenetics can cause some of your genes to turn off – like the lights in a building, sometimes only one room is dark but other times whole floors may have the lights turned off.

My job is to communicate research results about epigenetics. That might be to other scientists, to the general public or to science students. Most of the time I make illustrations and diagrams to show how epigenetics works but I also get to write about it.

In my spare time, I also create illustrations for veterinarians, doctors and scientists like sketches of body parts for surgery diagrams and computer generated diagrams and flow charts. You can see some examples here and also on my website www.medipicsandprose.com.au

I spend probably 3/4 of my day at my computer, because that’s where I make the pictures and diagrams for the epigenetics laboratory I work with. I also use my computer to research what other labs have found out about epigenetics because that often helps us with our own work. The other 1/4 of my day is spent talking to scientists, and we have “LabChat” once a week where, for two hours, scientists in the lab share what work they have been doing for the past few weeks. This is a great time to troubleshoot experiments and to celebrate any achievements – like getting a scientific paper published.

Even with the most powerful microscope, the molecules and proteins within your cells are way too small to see. If we could see them, we would understand much more about what they are doing and how they work to keep us alive. Scientists have worked out what some of these molecules look like and I am now learning how to make pictures and animations of these molecules, to show what actually goes on within a living cell. It’s amazing to think that in every cell, there is 2m of DNA packed in! So, how does the cell do that!?

If I had $1000 I would make an artwork showing what these molecules, and DNA actually look like and how 2m of DNA is stuffed into every cell. I would print the posters and send them to schools to display in science classrooms. OR: If DNA is not your thing, you tell me what science artwork you want to have on your classroom wall! 

This picture shows DNA (orange) wrapping around special proteins (Blue and green) within the cell.