UFCST member places third in Elegance of Science contest

UF Neuroscience assistant professor and UFCST member Jeremy McIntyre took home third place in the Florida Museum of Natural History’s 2016 Elegance of Science contest.

McIntyre’s contest entry was a stylized representation of the olfactory bulb. In order to produce the effect, he ran the image through filters in Photoshop that produced an oil painting look.

UFCST member Jeremy McIntyre’s entry into the Elegance of Science contest is a stylized depiction of a thin section of the olfactory bulb.

“The image I made was from a confocal microscope picture of the olfactory bulb,” McIntyre said. “Some of the research that is ongoing in my lab is studying how physiological states and hormones can influence odor perception.”

“For this image we were looking at where specific proteins are located in the olfactory bulb, and the types of cells that they are found in,” he continued. “The red color in the image comes from a stain that recognizes a fluorescent protein that we express in those neurons in order to record neural activity from them. The green is from an antibody that binds to a receptor for a specific neurotransmitter while the blue is a stain that labels DNA in the nucleus of all the cells in the bulb.”

The section of the olfactory bulb represented in the image is just 10 microns.

For winning third place, McIntyre received a $50 cash award.

The 2016 contest was the sixth edition of Elegance of Science, and drew in more than 50 entries from faculty, staff and students from across the University of Florida.

Contest entries are limited to images created in the course of research or that incorporate scientific tools or concepts and must include a statement from the artist explaining the scientific or educational value of the piece.

McIntyre and the other winners were chosen by a panel of judges from the Gainesville art and science communities. The awards were presented to the winners at a March 21 ceremony at the Florida Museum.