We talk about microbes on this podcast. But let’s face it. If you don’t see a picture of them, it’s difficult to imagine what’s going on in the microbial world. That’s why microscopy is so helpful. It allows us to actually see the invisible communities of bacteria, fungi, algae, viruses, archaea, and protozoa.
But sometimes, art does a better job of representing the microbial world and all of its intricacies and nuances. So that’s what my guest on the podcast, Dr. Lizah van der Aart, does. They create microbiology art as a professional science artist and illustrator, helping others express difficult concepts that need descriptive visuals.
Another thing I love that Lizah does is create microbiology art that anyone can purchase from their online shops, things like enamel pins of bacteria that we talk about in the episode, tote bags, stickers, and coffee mugs. These different products they sell allow us to outwardly express our love, passion, and enthusiasm for microbes.
If you’ve ever wanted to meet a science artist, here’s your chance. We discuss Lizah’s background as a PhD microbiologist and how they decided to combine their passion for microbiology with art to create a career. Lizah works with different clients on science illustration projects, and I’ve actually had the pleasure of working with them on a project of my own. So, we discuss the process of working together to turn my idea of what I thought would be the best Winogradsky column color guide into a real thing. It ended up looking amazing and is a truly beautiful representation of the colorful patterns you might see in your column. Ya gotta see it.
In this episode, you will learn about…
- How bioluminescent bacteria drew Lizah to microbiology
- What makes the soil bacteria Streptomyces so delightful?
- An example of the difficulties in categorizing bacteria: Thermoactinomycetes
- Deciding to start a science illustration business
- How Lizah helps us visualize complex microbiology concepts
- How many bacterial cells can fit in a tote bag?
- Our collaboration on the Joyful Winogradsky Column Guide
- Microbes in our daily lives: the outliers in the microbial world
- At-home microbiology activity: creating microbial shapes
Listen to my episode with Dr. Lizah van der Aart
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Table of Contents
Dr. Lizah van der Aart: science artist + microbiology expert
Justine Dees
You are a science illustrator wrapping up your postdoc and will be fully self-employed in June [Lizah now works full-time on their business]. That’s really exciting. I love that you work on science but also are a science illustrator. So you bring together these two topics: science and art. Having art that relates to microbes is helpful because microbes are abstract — we can’t see them with the naked eye. And so with your work, you make microbiology real to people, the things we may have trouble wrapping our heads around like bacteria and other microorganisms. And you provide a way for people that love microbes to express their enthusiasm about them. So first, let’s talk about who you are and what you do both as a scientist and a science Illustrator.
Lizah van der Aart
Thank you for that introduction. That’s really kind. I’m Lizah. I live in Newcastle upon Tyne right now in the United Kingdom, which is about 50 kilometers underneath Scotland. So if we only move 50 kilometers up, maybe we can avoid the whole Brexit thing, but that’s okay. So as you can hear from my name, and probably my accent, I’m originally from the Netherlands, where I also did my PhD. And then I moved up to Newcastle to do my postdoc in the center for bacterial cell biology at Newcastle University.
I’ve always been in love with art. Before I went to university to study biology, I had a difficult time deciding whether to take the time to make a portfolio for art school or go to university and study life, which also intrigued me. So I made the decision, good or bad, to study life — biology. And I have not regretted it. Biology is awesome. You’d probably agree that there’s always something surprising. Nature always has a way of being beautiful and surprising in every single way.
How bioluminescent bacteria drew Lizah to microbiology
Justine Dees
When did you get interested in microbiology?
Lizah van der Aart
Biology is a funny thing because I always enjoyed nature. But I didn’t really consider it a direction of study until I did one really cool experiment with my teacher in high school. I read an article in a magazine about an ecosystem in a jar. You have a jar and add seawater, plants, a tiny type of shrimp, and we tried to add bioluminescent bacteria. The idea was that if you closed it, it would maintain itself. The idea was so cool. But it died and stank horribly within a week. But it was after that, I realized I loved the concept of ecosystems.
Justine Dees
I love that. And I think also it shows that you were ready to be a scientist because even though something, “failed,” you were like, hey, this is amazing. And I love that you tried to add bioluminescent bacteria. So how old were you when you did that?
Lizah van der Aart
I think I was 17 at the time.
Justine Dees
What was your understanding of bioluminescent bacteria at the time?
Lizah van der Aart
Almost nothing. And in high school at the time, at least, we hardly learned about bacteria at all. So much is focused on human health. If you’re lucky, you get to look at plants and animals and a bit of ecosystem like nitrogen cycle and water cycle but not really bacteria. So the concept of bioluminescent bacteria blew my mind. It was so cool. So I got some from the market with the idea that I’d scraped some from the fish and put it on a plate. It wasn’t obviously bioluminescent at the time, it was just bacteria with the possibility of bioluminescent bacteria there. It was so exciting.
Justine Dees
So did they ever light up at all in your jar?
Lizah van der Aart
They never did.
What makes the soil bacteria Streptomyces so delightful?
Justine Dees
Well, it’s still worth a try. You’ve got to try stuff. So you studied the structure of Streptomyces bacteria for your PhD? Why don’t you tell us a little bit about that. And I love Streptomyces! So will you share about what they do and what you worked on?
Lizah van der Aart
Everyone who works with Streptomyces absolutely loves them. I’m not sure if that’s because Streptomyces are just so lovely, or if we just all have some weird quirk about us. But bacteria are generally very small, single-celled tiny or elongated cells. But Streptomyces are completely different. They’re fluffy like a fungus you find on an orange — super fluffy and cute. And they come in all sorts of colors. I think that’s why I’m so excited about them. I remember seeing my first Streptomyces plates of Streptomyces coelicolor making incredible blue pigments. I’d never seen a bacteria become completely blue naturally before that. I mean, I’ve done some genetics with a blue test to see if your gene had inserted a plasmid. But this bacteria made a bright blue antibiotic.
One of the cool things about Streptomyces is not just their shape and their color but their complex life cycle. They are multicellular, fluffy, and they make spores. So they have a cycle in which they make a new spore and a new fluffy mycelium comes from that. And this normally all happens in the soil. So maybe you’ve told stories about Streptomyces making geosmin and making the scent of the soil. So when we walk around in the forest, and we smell the scent that’s so distinctly forest, it is geosmin, a compound produced by Streptomyces that we’re smelling. We’re so sensitive to that smell that its molecules diluted to about a teaspoon in about 10 Olympics with swimming pools, and we still smell it.
Learn more about soil bacteria here.
Life in the soil is really rough. First, it’s wet, then super dry. And there are all these other bacteria. And you’re a tiny little bacteria with no teeth and no claws — you’re just sitting there. And yet, at some point, you finally have some food and you need to protect it. How do you do it? They do chemical warfare. Streptomyces make so many different types of antibiotics to protect their nutrients. And that’s also the source of over two-thirds of the antibiotics we use in the clinic. And that links to my PhD research.
So my research was mostly on antibiotic production and resistance. And that’s where something else cool comes in. If you make a chemical that’s dangerous for bacteria, you need to be sure that it’s not harmful to you. You need to be resistant. Generally, when Streptomyces make an antibiotic, they make sure that they can handle it and that they have genes that make them resistant to it. But antibiotic resistance in the clinic is a massive problem. So I looked at a bacteria that naturally was resistant to the clinically-used antibiotic vancomycin. When Streptomyces coelicolor, which are resistant to it, recognize vancomycin, they completely change their cell wall (the antibiotic target) to become resistant. And that change is pretty radical. So most of my time in that lab I researched how the Streptomyces cell wall changed in response to seeing these antibiotics.
Justine Dees
Is vancomycin produced by bacteria or a fungus? I’m trying to get my head around the idea of Streptomyces protecting themselves. So it’s from similar bacteria that they’re protecting themselves from when they see vancomycin. But vancomycin is also an antibiotic we use clinically. So that’s very interesting.
Lizah van der Aart
It’s produced by an Actinomycete called Amycolatopsis orientalis. A few different species create similar compounds, but they are last resort compounds we use in the clinic right now. And they target the cell wall of Gram positive bacteria.
Justine Dees
So Streptomyces are actually able to restructure themselves to protect from vancomycin. So I guess that means you would see Streptomyces and the vancomycin-producing organism in the wild at the same time?
Lizah van der Aart
Definitely. That, I think, has been shown as a very general mechanism where antibiotic resistances are spread. All these bacteria cohabitate in the soil (or wherever they are). And these antibiotic resistance mechanisms are just as abundant as the antibiotics are. So for every antibiotic we find, there’s bound to be a resistance mechanism. So at some point we will encounter problems with that.
Justine Dees
I also wanted to highlight what you said earlier about Streptomyces because it is true: anybody who learns about Streptomyces or study them at some point fall in love with them. And I think it’s because it touches on two of our senses: their delightful smell and beautiful colors. There’s something really charming about that.
Lizah van der Aart
Colors are strange things. What is a color really? It’s just a way to bend light. And so if we see bacteria that are blue, pink, or really bright yellow, then we know that they make a chemical compound that’s complicated enough to bend light in some sort of way. And that’s often an indication that they make other interesting compounds. That’s what we genuinely use as an indication for interesting antibiotic production.
Justine Dees
Why is it that they tend to have colors when they are actually important compounds?
Lizah van der Aart
It’s the side effects. Usually, it’s ring-like structures that are good at bending light in some sort of way. That’s a side effect of the complexity of this type of compound.
Justine Dees
And what other colors do they make besides blue?
Lizah van der Aart
I described a new species Streptomyces roseofaciens and named it after its pretty bright pink color. When my co-worker isolated the compound itself, she had this long isolation column that was so incredibly bright pink, it was almost luminescent. It was so much fun to look at.
Oh, naming species is a disaster, by the way, because the names are supposed to be in Latin, but I don’t speak Latin because it’s a dead language. And no one speaks Latin. And then you’re supposed to use proper naming conventions to name your species, but it’s a different study on its own.
Justine Dees
Yeah, naming them and then trying to pronounce their names is another thing altogether. When I was working on my PhD, I taught an undergrad research lab where and helped the students isolate Streptomyces from the soil. So we went around campus and sampled. And one of the students isolated one that made a pink pigment. I just loved that so much. Seeing that color was just very surprising.
Lizah van der Aart
I love that. Mike Goodfellow has worked with Streptomyces forever, and I love to visit his office because he has these tiny glass jars filled with freeze-dried Streptomyces samples. And they’re all different colors and everything.
An example of the difficulties in categorizing bacteria: Thermoactinomycetes
Justine Dees
For your postdoc, you worked on something a little bit different. So why don’t you share about that?
Lizah van der Aart
Yeah, it’s different but at the same time, not that different. And I can explain why. So for Streptomyces, I worked on antibiotic resistance. But related to that, I also described a new species and got to know taxonomy and how to put bacteria in the proper place in the phylogenetic tree. And related to my antibiotic resistance work, I looked at the cell wall because that was the thing that changed with the antibiotic. So taken together, I gained a lot of insights in the cell wall, which determines cell shape and bacteria, and where to place bacteria properly in the taxonomic tree.
So my new boss, Jeff asked me if I’d be interested in looking at a bacteria that had a really strange shape, and a really strange place in the phylogenetic tree. Those were both things I knew how to do and enjoy doing. So I moved to the United Kingdom. This new type of bacteria — Thermoactinomycetes — are mycelial, just like Streptomyces. So they are also tiny, fluffy balls with really long branches. But they are not Streptomyces, despite being part of the Streptomyces for 50 plus years when they describe the species at first. When they looked at the DNA when it became possible, they realized they are not Streptomyces but Firmicutes, closely related to Bacillus subtilis (tiny unicellular bacteria).
It’s kind of like a dolphin. When you look at all these fish-like creatures and a dolphin, you think, well, this must be a fish — it looks like a fish. But then you look closer and you realize, no, this is a mammal. It’s more closely related to a horse than to a fish, which is super strange. And we find the same thing with these bacteria. They don’t look like the species they’re supposed to be. So our question is, how do you do this?
Shapes bring all these challenges. Bacteria also have the challenge of having two copies of DNA, bringing them to the sides, and then dividing smack in the center. But a mycelial bacteria has the challenge of getting the DNA everywhere and its mycelium. That’s pretty complicated. And then dividing in a proper way, making spores, and at the right time is incredibly complex. But these creatures have no brain. They just have DNA, which is honestly a very poor handbook, like an IKEA manual for how to do life. So we’re wondering, how are you like this?
Justine Dees
So are these organisms in the soil along with Streptomyces?
Lizah van der Aart
Thermoactinomycetes got their name because they’re mostly isolated from really hot haystacks you see next to the road, but there’s also, manure in there. They mostly like to grow at 50 to 60ºC, but indeed, along with plenty of Streptomyces and fungi.
Justine Dees
And so they formed mycelium. So that’s usually, in my mind, in the bucket of fungi. I haven’t really thought about bacteria forming mycelium. Can you explain what that’s like? Is it is very different from a fungus forming mycelium?
Lizah van der Aart
They look the same, but bacteria are so much smaller. That’s why Streptomyces were also confused with fungi for the longest time. I think up until the 1930s at least it used to be thought that Streptomyces were fungi. That’s why they still have “myces” in the name. But the main difference is the size — they’re so much smaller. And fungi have different organelles. They have their DNA in an organelle. And all sorts of things that animals also have. They’re completely different organisms in that sense.
Justine Dees
So the branching mycelial network that they form, is it also smaller too?
Lizah van der Aart
It’s so tiny. Very skinny.
Justine Dees
Is it visible with the naked eye?
Lizah van der Aart
You can’t see Streptomyces branches with the naked eye. But you don’t need a very good, very big microscope to be able to look at it. So that’s at least nice. And if you grow a big strain in liquid, you can hold that up to the light and see big balls going around.
How Lizah helps us visualize complex microbiology concepts
Justine Dees
At what point did you start creating art related to microbiology?
Lizah van der Aart
I’ve been making art a really long time. I always had it as a bit of an escape from science. Science is difficult. It takes brain power. So when I want to do something fun, I can consider the exact tone of blue of that sky and relax. But, of course, when you can do things like that, you apply it to your work sometimes.
So after my PhD, I made a tiny magazine for my friends and family with a layman’s description of what I’d done during my PhD and made illustrations for that, for example. And then about a year ago, I started to make more microbiology art and putting it on Redbubble, because people were just excited about that. And in the pandemic, we weren’t allowed to go to the lab. So that got me going haywire on it and expanding.
Justine Dees
Now, that’s really neat. So is the little magazine that you made is that available online, anywhere?
Lizah van der Aart
I had it on my old website, but it was also in Dutch. So while I would love to share it, it’s so niche now because it’s all in Dutch. (See the magazine Lizah made here.)
Justine Dees
It would probably still be neat to share just the pictures, at least.
Lizah van der Aart
Yeah, I considered for a while whether I would make it in Dutch or English. But I decided the people I’m going to give it to are my friends and family at my defense. So I’m just going to be selfish here and make it just for my family and friends. And it was really nice. Graduations in the Netherlands, or at least at my old university in Leiden, were more of an event than a proper examination. So it was a big event, and a lot of friends and family came. There is an examination where they asked me questions about my thesis. But everyone also got a copy of my thesis, which is also normal in the Netherlands — you print like 150 copies of your thesis, which is tiny, it was only 150 pages. I can’t expect my friends and family to read my thesis. So that’s why I made the magazine. You have this book now, but what am I actually saying here?
Justine Dees
I love that. I think that’s so neat that you took everything you studied for years and made it into a magazine to share with your family. I think that’s really special.
Lizah van der Aart
It’s really fun, but also kind of disappointing. You look at it like wow, that was it.
Justine Dees
But that’s good that you were able to boil it down to something simple. I think that’s great.
Lizah van der Aart
It was fun. Also, I wasn’t able to do that immediately after graduating. It took me some time of taking a break from it and looking back. Oh, yeah. This is what I did. So my formal graduation was half a year after I finished my thesis, and I really needed that time to cool down from it.
Deciding to start a science illustration business
Justine Dees
So your science illustration business, was that motivated by having all that time during the pandemic to not be in the lab?
Lizah van der Aart
During the pandemic, one of my jobs for my boss, while I couldn’t work in the lab was to make a graphical abstract for a review. And that went really well and also really fast. And we were both very happy with the results. I thought, well, why don’t I do more of this because this is so much fun?
So I made a lot more art during lockdown when you couldn’t do anything. I spent a lot of time developing myself. It was a good thing that came out of the pandemic — everything has a good thing.
It was actually my boss who asked me whether it would not be a good idea to leave the lab and become a full-time freelancer. In January, I did a Kickstarter of enamel pins, which was super successful. And with that, in the back of my mind, I went into a career progress meeting with my boss. For my review piece, I’d written that my ambition was to one day become a freelance science illustrator — to focus on arts. And my boss asked me, well, when are you going to do this? If this is your ambition, you need to do this. And he surprised me with that. But he was also right. If this is something you want, then go do it. So he’s been super supportive.
Justine Dees
That’s amazing. That is so great that your boss encouraged you and has been supporting you through this. So that’s going to be in June when you’re finished up in the lab?
Lizah van der Aart
June is our current leaving date. I recently took care of the paperwork. And it was so strange to write a letter saying I am leaving you. It’s also a moment where you look at yourself and think, am I making the biggest mistake ever? But I think it’s going to be great.
My boss is amazing in that he is also very straightforward about the fact that academia is difficult. There are a lot more PhD students and postdocs than there are positions as principal investigators. So there’s a lot of people who leave academia to do something else. And if you’re not looking forward to a position as a principal investigator, then it’s probably better for you if you’re honest with yourself and say, well, I want to do this other thing with my life.
Justine Dees
I think so often it’s assumed that’s what we would do with ourselves after we finish a PhD. But there are so many other careers out there we can do with a PhD.
Lizah van der Aart
I think it’s this role model thing. Everyone we meet during a PhD are people who did the PhD and then continued in academia. We don’t have contact with people who did something else.
Justine Dees
That’s so true. And then, for me, I was so focused on doing my PhD that I didn’t even look into other things available at first. And it took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do. But I just wanted to get my research done. And I loved being in the lab. I was consumed with it. And so yeah, your role models are all the people in the university with you and your advisor. So you figure, why would you not do that? But the truth is, there are so many other things that you can do. And it’s not a bad thing. It’s a very good thing that we can do whatever we want.
Lizah van der Aart
Absolutely. And now with art, I’m noticing how much demand there really is for it. Especially now that I also started to do some animations. It’s really fun to see how many scientists look at a simple animation and think, actually, I want this for my research because it’s so explanatory. And it is like they say a picture is worth 1000 words. But a moving picture makes it so much easier to understand, especially with microbiology that can be difficult to explain anyway.
How Lizah helps us visualize complex microbiology concepts
Justine Dees
What would you say is your favorite microbiology concept to illustrate that is difficult for people to explain in words?
Lizah van der Aart
Genetics. We can talk about genetics and genes all we want, but there are really nice explanatory images of phylogenetic trees. They show a shape of a species and you can immediately see — like the dolphin and fish example — this thing here does not belong here but is in this line. And that’s our entire point.
And what I like to illustrate and show, but it’s also just for me, is I like being really graphic and bold with things. While normally bacterial shapes are actually pretty simple, round things, it’s cool if you make the shape super bold, bright red with weird colors. I recently made a Helicobacter pylori illustration that had a lot of acid inspiration. I enjoy making a simple shape really exciting. Antibiotic production and resistance is something I want to explore with how something is made and fights off the other thing. But it’s always a question of how do you show it in a way that’s actually understandable? Sometimes we go beyond ourselves and make an illustration more confusing than it should be.
Justine Dees
Well, I think that’s really neat. And I like that you’ve chosen to go with big, bold shapes and colors. It’s a great way to depict bacteria and the microbial world because people think of it as very simple. But if you really think about it, there’s a lot going on in there. And probably having those big, bold colors and shapes helps people grasp the idea that there’s a whole world and that it’s doing lots of things that we’re not thinking about.
Lizah van der Aart
Also with illustration styles, my friends Noémie Matthey, Eliza Wolfson, and Frank Santoriello are also science illustrators and like to give them eyes and personalities. On one hand, when you’re a microbiologist, people constantly tell you, “no, you cannot say this bacteria is happy.” “No, you cannot say this bacteria is angry. They don’t have emotions. They’re just bacteria.” And it’s also really nice to sometimes to draw and this guy as super angry and this guy as super happy. It’s a fun way to explain something. Every approach I think works really well.
Justine Dees
I think that’s so true. I’ve definitely had people say, “do not anthropomorphize microbes,” and “do not talk about how they’re like humans in any way because microbes don’t think.” But I feel like it does help us understand what they’re doing.
Lizah van der Aart
In science communication, it really helps. But then when you’re writing a scientific article, which of course we’re doing all the time in science, it’s really something I need to put aside and think, okay, they’re not angry, there’s no emotion. There’s a response and a reaction. But it’s sometimes also just fun to say they are really angry right now, so now they make antibiotics.
How many bacterial cells can fit in a tote bag?
Justine Dees
That’s true. You really have to balance those two ideas in your mind.
One of the things that you created that I really liked was a bacteria tote bag. And on the bag, it says this bag contains 26.4 times 10 to the 14th bacteria. And you said that was a rough calculation of how many could fit inside of the bag. I love that. So how did you come up with this idea and what motivated you to create it?
Lizah van der Aart
I like having actual stuff with microorganisms on it. There are so many bags that have plants and cutesy animals. But I like to have cool stuff to wear with microorganisms that’s also not too jokey because I like pretty things. I’m very superficial. And one of my friends is a fashion illustrator and makes tote bags with things like, this bag contains…and then she has lipstick on it. I always like to look at that. And I would like that with bacteria — this bag contains this massive amount of bacteria. It was really, I have to say, a poor calculation. I had a receipt, just took the back, and Googled something like, how many bacteria would fit into a square inch? I found an article from super long ago and was like, good enough for me. I’ll extrapolate it.
Justine Dees
I love that. That’s so cool that you took a concept that was used for things like what’s in this purse? And then you did that with microbes. That’s so clever.
Lizah van der Aart
It’s fun. I’m also very happy with how it worked out. Sometimes with these concepts. You have an idea and then you do it and you realize, actually…so, it’s always great when it works out.
I really like to look at fashion illustration and fashion design for how they do things to see if I can steal it. They’re always so forward.
Our collaboration on the Joyful Winogradsky Column Guide
Justine Dees
Another thing that you worked on — we actually have worked together, and it was a super fun process. I created the Joyful Winogradsky Column Guide. And while I was working on it, I decided I wanted to have a color guide to show the different colors and layers that are in a Winogradsky column. While I was in the process of creating it, I realized, I don’t think I can create this color guide on my own — this is gonna be really difficult. I considered hand-drawing it, making it in PowerPoint, or trying to get Illustrator to work again. But then I came across an illustration you did of a Winogradsky column on Instagram (see it here) and I immediately messaged you and was like, “oh my gosh, this is amazing. I love this so much.” I actually sent you a voice message. And I was in love with it. And I was like, “would you want to work with me?” I’m so happy that you did. So tell us a little bit about that process of how you created the color guide.
Click here to get your own Joyful Winogradsky Column Guide.
Lizah van der Aart
It was so fun to work on. I actually tagged you in a post (see the post here). I think because one of my friends told me about your blog, and I was so excited about all your photos. It was really fun to hear that we both had an “Oh my God, this person is so cool” moment. So you had a very clear concept. And that made it super easy to work with you. And you actually had a list of exactly which colors are supposed to be where and which types of bacteria. So that made it easy for me to also actually look for the exact bacteria that are supposed to be there because they all have different shapes. Again, I come back to shapes. I’m kind of obsessed, and I’m okay with this.
One of the things I really like to do is to make a seamless pattern for it. Illustration is a weird thing — there are so many ways to approach it. When I make a fun illustration for myself, I like to draw everything by hand, because that’s a really relaxing process. But for example, with you, you probably have more ideas than just a simple illustration. So I like to approach it in a way that things can be used more. So I remember your excitement when I showed you the seamless patterns. It’s simple for me because instead of drawing 200 bacteria, I draw 20, make it a seamless pattern, and then make it big. So you can say, “I want this pattern here.” “I want this big.” And you can change everything. Instead of having six layers, you can remove one for a column that has four. And, that’s fine, because it’s your column, and your column is perfect. So yeah, that was a bit of fun to make.
I really like working with, for example, you have this amazing idea of this column and a really fun guide. I think that, for me, is the best part of science: hearing about all these great ideas and examples of other people science. Every time I hear things like this, I get so excited. I’m also working with someone on a fun grant proposal. When she gets that, she’ll probably super excited to share it with everyone. But it’s really nice to hear about these new concepts that I wouldn’t have thought of on my own.
Justine Dees
That’s so neat. It’s so fun. And you get to actually bring these ideas to life. You are so talented and gifted at doing art. And you are good at taking the idea and expanding it, where I didn’t have to tell you exactly what to do. But then you were like, okay, so I have an idea of what you want. But then I’m gonna take this and run with it. And I felt like I could really trust you, which was really awesome. So that’s really nice I can give you this concept but then you’re able to take it and then add to it.
Lizah van der Aart
I’m so happy you like that. It’s also one of the reasons that, for illustrations that are microbiology style, you want to have an illustrator that knows microbiology. It’s difficult to explain all these concepts and then to show, for example, reference photos of a type of bacteria.
Justine Dees
It is. And then you know where to look for the information so that if you’re wondering how something should look or how to keep it scientifically accurate, you already have your hands on the resources or know where to look for them. So I think that’s really a huge benefit of having a microbiologist actually be able to illustrate your concept for you. So I think that’s really neat. And I’m excited to see where your business goes.
Lizah van der Aart
Yeah, me too. I’m starting full-time in June but I’m so happy that I already have a lot of things to do. I love to work on it. I already know in a year’s time, I’ll probably do something completely different than I’m imagining right now. That’s just how life goes. But that’s fine.
Microbes in our daily lives: the outliers in the microbial world
Justine Dees
We are going to definitely work on some things in the future together.
What would you say that you’ve learned overall about microbes in our daily lives from doing microbial art?
Lizah van der Aart
I think one of the things I like most about microbiology is diversity and sudden changes. I remember at some point doing experiments where I had a mutant and it should have, by all means, not grown on a specific medium. But it popped up and grew anyway — persister strains. And that diversity of always one of them that persists, changes, or evolves and this uniqueness in life is something that I find beauty in.
People also have that where there’s a situation where you say, by all means, no one should do it as someone does it. This madman just thrives, like people who live in the Arctic. It’s like, how do you do to an extremity? There are bacteria growing in ice somewhere or next to volcanoes. Why are you even doing this? You’re crazy. You should not be doing this. Yet there are crazy outliers. I really love the crazy outliers.
Justine Dees
Yeah, and to them, they’re not crazy. And that’s anthropomorphizing them. But at the same time, it’s from our perspective that we call them crazy (from a human perspective). Yeah, but to them it’s their norm.
Lizah van der Aart
In nature, and indeed, this environment where, by all means, nothing should grow yet one of them does. That’s the real winner there.
At-home microbiology activity: creating microbial shapes
Justine Dees
What at-home microbiology activity can you tell everyone about so that we can go and experience the microbial world in a hands-on way?
Lizah van der Aart
Yeah, so I have a funny little activity in mind. So I’m obsessed with shapes. And shapes are also important for bacteria. For example, I talked about mycelial bacteria. They probably have a purpose. We don’t know why mycelial shapes are important. There’s probably a reason. But there’s one shape that is incredibly important: the corkscrew shape of Helicobacter pylori. Helicobacter is a bacterium that creates stomach ulcers, and by this corkscrew shape, it corkscrews its way into the stomach lining and sits stuck in there. So this shape is super important for how it causes disease. But it’s also really difficult.
And I’d like to invite you to explore how difficult shapes are with me by trying to make the shape. Some bacteria are shaped like a banana, like Caulobacter crescentus and Vibrio cholera. And that’s really easy to make by taking a thin sheet of paper and holding it on top of another thin sheet of paper, and then just making one bigger than the other. If you have two A4’s on top of each other and you make one smaller. You already have this dome shape. We can do this. But if you wonder like, how does a bacteria make a corkscrew shape? Indeed. I’d like to invite you to try and do it out of paper and wonder how does this organism with no brain make the shape?
Justine Dees
I love that. So everyone can kind of go out and look up the different types of shapes of bacteria or microbes out there and try to create them by making shapes with paper. And then think about the idea of how crazy it is that they can actually make these shapes. I love that. Really neat.
Lizah kindly provided a visual aid to help with the activity. So, grab a piece of paper or two, some scissors, and glue, and try creating these shapes. It will help you appreciate how impressive it is that microbes come in all of these different shapes.
Links & Resources
This post contains affiliate links — see my disclosure policy.
- What’s in the Soil? A Primer to Soil Bacteria (blog post)
- The Delightful and Repulsive Smells of Microbes (blog post)
- Small Things Considered (blog)
- I Contain Multitudes by Ed Yong (book)
- Lizah’s online shops:
- Lizah’s webcomic Discovery
- Joyful Winogradsky Column Guide (a guide to making Winogradsky columns in the classroom with color guide by Lizah)
- Zine of Lizah’s PhD research
Connect with Dr. Lizah van der Aart
Dr. Lizah van der Aart is a science artist who lives in their own head more than outside it. Their scientific background is on Streptomyces growth, development, and antibiotic production. After their Ph.D., they spent two years as a postdoc working on mycelial firmicutes before becoming a freelance artist. Their representations of science aim to show the fantasy of science art: none of the things they draw are ‘real.’ They are only their imagination of the subject. And this can be as dramatic and magical as they like them to be. They are very passionate about science communication and have their own Webtoon, Discovery, that explores science history.
Connect (and/or work) with Dr. Lizah van der Aart (She/They): Website, Twitter, Instagram
Using viruses to battle superbugs (phage therapy): Dr. Jessica Sacher
