A 11×17” magazine spread on Alopecia Areata, depicting the microanatomy of the scalp and the disease’s immune targets.
Client
Prof. Shelley Wall
Dr. John Wong
Tools
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Photoshop
Cinema 4D
Creative Process
Part of coursework for MSC2018H (Visual Representation of Processes in Pathology): an original, conceptual medical illustration demonstrating pathological change in a tissue over time, to explain a particular disease process to an educated lay audience.
Pathological Illustration
Requires a good understanding of cell, tissue and organ morphology, and the pathobiology of disease.
Portraiture
A lovely classmate has graciously agreed to be my model. A scatter brush was made specifically to depict hair in Photoshop.
Painting Cells
We made a voronoi pattern in illsutrator for the layers of hair cells and fat.
Hand-drawn Molecules
The molecules are hand-drawn. The reference of the proteins were extracted from PDB (retrieved and rendered using ePMV plug-in in Cinema 4D).
Gallery
From cells to receptors
Alopecia areata (AA) is a common autoimmune disease. Recently, research has further defined AA’s molecular mechanism and created new treatment targets. Existing visualizations fail to explain these new interventions to a general audience because: 1) oversimplification of the hair microanatomy, and 2) all existing visualization explains the hair cycle and immune response as separate entities, disconnecting hair growth dynamics and the molecular mechanism. We bridged these communication gaps through a comparison of AA scalp and normal scalp at the gross and molecular levels, providing a comprehensive picture of this complex disease.
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Pathological Illustration: Alopecia Areata
A 11x17'' magazine spread on Alopecia Areata, depicting the microanatomy of the scalp and the disease's immune targets.Client Prof. Shelley WallDr. John Wong Tools Adobe Illustrator Adobe Photoshop Cinema 4D Creative ProcessAlopecia areata (AA) is a common...