Biomedical Communications

Neuroanatomy course takes a personal approach to brain illustrations

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 28 Mar 2022 14:20:29 +0000

Neuroanatomy course takes a personal approach to brain illustrations

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 03/28/2022 - 10:20

Cutline

Students taking a neuroanatomy course as part of U of T's biomedical communications program were challenged to draw both an accurate representation of the brain – and themselves (images via Instagram)

Maeve Doyle

Topic

Our Community

Biomedical Communications

Academics

Graduate Students

U of T Mississauga

A medical illustrator may well be asked to create illustrations of the brain over the course of his or her career – but rarely do the assignments get personal.

Shelley Wall, associate professor of biomedical communications and biology at the �ؿ�ζSM Mississauga, says she wanted to challenge the design and rendering skills of graduate students when the “Neuroanatomy for Visual Communication” course was rescheduled from the master of science in biomedical communications program’s first year to its second year.

The course teaches students the structure and function of the brain and the cranial nerves. They engage in interactive exercises, examine brain specimens and skulls, study historical and contemporary texts, and watch videos of dissections.

"In first year, students are still finding their way in anatomical illustration,” says Wall, adding that the course’s first assignment had previously been a straightforward illustration of the brain in isolation. “Now that Neuro is a second-year graduate course, I could take it to the next level because the students' skills are so much more developed.

“So, I conceived the neuro self-portrait assignment."

Making the assignment a self-portrait not only raised the bar in terms of understanding, it also allowed the students to show off their creativity.

“Drawing the brain is one thing – you must make it accurate,” Wall says. “But what makes this assignment so different is that you really must understand all the important relationships between the brain, the brain case, and the external features of the head. And making the assignment a self-portrait is a way of making it also a completely unique illustration that really puts the students’ stamp on it.”

Even working within the constraints of the course assignment, and the strict parameters of depicting the brain with accuracy, the course’s second-year graduate students delivered a broad range of unique and original illustrations.

Mimi (Yuejun) Guo used two different traditional mediums and then digitally composited them to create her self-portrait.

“I used carbon dust to create a black-and-white self-portrait with less saturation and colour to not compete with the brain illustration,” Guo says. “I used acrylic paint for its vibrant colours and to highlight the brain.”

Guo also added a whole new layer of complexity to the assignment by portraying the brain from an upward angle, and at a three-quarter view.

“I chose this perspective to show all the crucial anatomical parts – the cerebral hemisphere, the cerebellum, the brainstem and the origins of the cranial nerves,” says Guo.

One student in Wall’s course worked with brain imaging data belonging to his father, who was diagnosed with a pituitary tumour two years ago and received copies of his MRI scans.

"Before my father's surgery in 2021, I tried to help him understand his condition better,” says Shehryar Saharan. “I was shocked by the lack of high-quality visuals available to explain the tumour in relation to the optic nerve and the rest of the brain. When this neuro assignment was introduced, it became the best excuse to help fill this void and create a neuroanatomy visualisation that would explain my dad's condition in a meaningful and simplified way.”

Saharan asked his father to pose for the portrait and he used his father's brain scans plus many other references to illustrate the brain and the tumour.

Saharan says that his father, whose surgery was a success, was thrilled with his neuro portrait. "After my dad saw the finished piece, he was better able to understand what he had gone through,” Saharan says. “He said he wished that he had had it earlier."

Sana Khan’s brother posed for her portrait, which Khan created in a style that references the 19^th-century anatomical atlas Traité complet de l'anatomie de l'homme written by Jean-Baptiste Marc Bourgery, and illustrated by Nicolas Henri Jacob.

“Rather than “ghost” the brain over the portrait, I wanted my illustration to look in vivo – as if you could pull back flaps of skin and tissue to see the brain within,” says Khan.

The homage to Bourgery’s canonical text also adds a touch of whimsy to the illustration, Wall says. She adds that, for medical illustrators, the neuro self-portrait assignment, which can be viewed on the program’s Instagram account, is the perfect intersection of complexity and accuracy, and creativity and originality.

“I like to think that this assignment not only challenges the students, but let’s them have some artistic fun as well.”

From colour-changing lizards to 'buff' birds, U of T students create fun, science-focused trading cards

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 18 Oct 2021 17:11:38 +0000

From colour-changing lizards to 'buff' birds, U of T students create fun, science-focused trading cards

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 10/18/2021 - 13:11

Cutline

Taking a cue from Pokémon trading cards, students in U of T Mississauga's biomedical communications program created the BMC SciCard Collaborative project to build community and inspire incoming students (image courtesy of Shehryar Saharan)

Maeve Doyle

Topic

Our Community

Biomedical Communications

Student Experience

Graduate Students

U of T Mississauga

Move over Pokémon – BMC SciCards are here.

Inspired by the Pokémon collectible trading cards of their childhood, �ؿ�ζSM biomedical communications students Shehryar (Shay) Saharan and Michie (Xingyu) Wu developed the BMC SciCard Collaborative project.

“The project began back in February 2021 when Michie and I were talking about ways we could collaborate as a cohort and involve other BMC students,” says Saharan, now a second-year student in the Master of Science in Biomedical Communications (BMC) program at U of T Mississauga.

BMC students are educated and trained in medical illustration and scientific visualization. Saharan, Wu and their cohort completed almost their entire first year online due to the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.

“We felt like a lot of our projects were individual, so we thought, ‘Why not have a fun side-project that we could all contribute to and also get the incoming BMC students involved in?’” Saharan says.

Shehryar (Shay) Saharan and Michie (Xingyu) Wu co-created the BMC SciCard Collaborative project (photo by Dave Mazierski)

The SciCard Collaborative project is based on the idea of trading cards but with a BMC twist. Unlike Pokémon's imaginary creatures with magical powers, the SciCard “creatures” are real.

“Everyone could choose an animal, a plant or a molecule with some sort of special ability that can be explained by science,” says Saharan, who still owns a Pokémon collection of over 200 cards.

Each participant tackled subjects with seemingly impossible traits and then created cards for them. Participants were encouraged to illustrate the card fronts in their own unique, explorative and creative styles. The card backs had to explain the science.

Saharan chose to depict the panther chameleon, which can change the colour of its skin – an ability Saharan finds fascinating and wanted to learn more about.

"The front of the card was called Colour-Changing Crystals,” he says. “The back shows the different layers of the skin and explains how the structure within the skin allows different light to bounce off and cause that colour-changing effect. So, although it sounds very magical, there are interesting scientific properties to explain it.”

Shehryar Saharan rendered the panther chameleon in carbon dust and then scanned and inverted the image so that light and dark tones were switched, giving the Colour-Changing Crystals card a nocturnal look and emphasizing the “wizardly” nature of the chameleon (Image courtesy of Shehryar Saharan)

First-year BMC graduate student Anaïs Lupu hadn't yet started the program when she received an invitation from Saharan and Wu to participate in the SciCard Collaborative project.

Anaïs Lupu (photo by Dave Mazierski)

“I was excited. I wanted to make a good impression and put my first piece out there,” says Lupu, a former Yu-gi-oh! trading card collector and, according to Saharan, a very talented artist.

“I did a detailed illustration in a [National Geographic] style,” says Lupu. Her card front is a realistic depiction of the deadly southern cassowary on a forest background. A pretty, blue, flightless bird, the Cassowary's special ability is its powerful kick. “This bird is buff,” she says. For the card back, Lupu chose to communicate the science through infographics rather than text.

Saharan and Wu organized online meetings for the SciCard participants where they presented their sketches and received feedback.

Anaïs Lupu llustrated her card front in a realistic National Geographic style, using infographics to communicate the science behind the bird’s powerful and dangerous kick (image courtesy of Anaïs Lupu)

Like Pokémon cards, SciCards have power rankings or "hit points." Lupu's Spear Kick card has a hit point of 55. Saharan's Colour-Changing Crystals has a hit point of 48.

“We even met to vote on the strength of the special ability,” says Lupu.

Saharan describes the SciCard Collaborative project as a precursor to the program’s information visualization course and a chance to explore visual communication principles. “The stakes were low. It was just collaborative and fun and we all got to know each other in the process, too. So, that was really rewarding,” he says.

He says he hopes that, with a larger collection in the future, there may be an online archive of the artwork and even printed physical copies of the SciCards. For now, the digital files are stored within the BMC program.

Saharan says that he and Wu hope someone will take on the SciCard Collaborative project next year and recruit a new group of current and incoming students to participate.

Lupu may just be that someone.

“I want to do this again next year if it's offered,” she says. “If not, I'd like to borrow their idea and run it myself.”

U of T student creates postcard to support disaster relief in Beirut

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 13 Aug 2020 15:37:22 +0000

U of T student creates postcard to support disaster relief in Beirut

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 08/13/2020 - 11:37

Cutline

Farah Hamade poses for a photo in Lebanon – a country she describes as her "second home" – in the summer of 2019 (photo courtesy of Farah Hamade)

Maeve Doyle

Topic

Global Lens

Lebanon

Biomedical Communications

Graduate Students

U of T Mississauga

Farah Hamade woke up and checked her phone the morning of Aug. 4. Her family chat group was crammed with messages: "Is everyone OK? What happened?”

It was 6 p.m. local time in Beirut, when a stockpile of ammonium nitrate stored in a warehouse exploded in the city's port. A second, stronger explosion obliterated buildings and devastated the densely populated area. Hundreds of people died. Thousands were injured. Many more were displaced.

Next, videos of the destruction appeared in Hamade’s social media feed.

"The footage was shocking,” says Hamade, a second year graduate student in the master of science in biomedical communications program at the �ؿ�ζSM Mississauga. “I was in utter disbelief. My family sent photos of damage to their offices and homes, of destruction in the streets that are so familiar to me.

“Thankfully my family is safe, but we all know someone who has been injured, left homeless or killed."

Hamade was born in San Francisco. She lived in multiple countries while growing up and considers Lebanon her second home. “I grew up visiting family in Beirut multiple times a year for holidays and summers. A big part of my family lives in Beirut and the surrounding areas,” she says.

Her memories from Beirut are of family greetings at the airport, pillow forts in her grandmother’s apartment and morning coffees on her aunt's balcony.

To help raise money for disaster relief efforts, Hamade is selling postcard prints of a watercolour sketch that depicts the view from her aunt's balcony in the Hamra neighbourhood of Beirut circa 2017.

“It's a city filled with life and creativity, nestled between the sea and the mountains,” says Hamad, a biomedical visualization specialist.

Already concerned about Lebanon’s financial crisis and public protests, Hamade says she now worries about the coronavirus pandemic as victims made homeless by the catastrophe try to find shelter with family and friends.

Despite feeling overwhelmed and exhausted, Hamade says that she knows she can help, even from a distance, by raising funds and sharing news. So, she is selling postcard prints of a watercolour sketch that depicts the view from her aunt's balcony in the Hamra neighbourhood of Beirut circa 2017 (funds can be sent via Venmo to farahamade). She says the sketch represents both a happy memory for her and a hopeful future for the city.

“All the funds raised from the postcards will go to disaster relief efforts in Beirut,” she says, adding that the first batch of donations will go to the Lebanese Red Cross and future donations will go to other NGOs working in the area.

Regardless of the reasons behind the catastrophe, Hamade says the important thing is people who are suffering need help.

“I hope that these postcard prints will encourage people to donate and maybe even inspire them to visit Beirut one day.”

How a master's degree in biomedical communications helped this U of T grad give back (video)

geoff.vendeville — Tue, 05 Nov 2019 19:00:00 +0000

How a master's degree in biomedical communications helped this U of T grad give back (video) geoff.vendeville Tue, 11/05/2019 - 14:00

Topic

Our Community

Biomedical Communications

When he came to the �ؿ�ζSM to study biomedical communications, Alexander Young says he had a foot in two worlds.

He became part of the university community while also maintaining his connection to his Métis culture and heritage.

Young, who graduates on Nov. 6, says his lessons in biomedical communications at U of T Mississauga gave him the practical skills he will need to jumpstart his career. Young’s portfolio includes magazine covers for the likes of Scientific American and 3D modelling, animation and user-experience projects.

But Young also realized that he could use the same skills he honed in university to give back to his community.

“I’ve had the opportunity to use the design skills and artistic skills that I have to communicate Indigenous language, Indigenenous initiatives both at U of T and in the city,” he says.

“It’s been an interesting realization that I might’ve specialized in this sort of niche field,” he adds, “but the skills that I’m learning are still applicable to broader communications and can still be used to benefit a broader community as well.”

Biomedical Communications

Neuroanatomy course takes a personal approach to brain illustrations

From colour-changing lizards to 'buff' birds, U of T students create fun, science-focused trading cards

U of T student creates postcard to support disaster relief in Beirut

How a master's degree in biomedical communications helped this U of T grad give back (video)

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