PhD student Reza Ghamsari’s eye-catching moving image shows hundreds of thousands of blood-producing bone marrow cells in the human body, scattered like stars across the cosmos.

Tell us about how you created and captured this image.

Part of my PhD project involves integrating single cell data from multiple donors to better understand cellular diversity.

I summarised the expression of thousands of genes across hundreds of thousands of bone marrow cells into a colourful 3D landscape using a technique called uMAP.

Each dot represents a single cell, grouped and coloured by their similarities.

What inspired you to capture this moment in your research?

Most people visualise this type of data in 2D, but I thought: why stop there when the human eye can see in 3D?

The first time I saw these cells forming colourful, distinct groups, it felt like standing on the edge of a cosmic landscape, except this one exists within us.

I wanted to share that moment where science meets wonder.

How does visualising your work help you think differently about your science?

Seeing the data as a swirling galaxy of cells helps me spot patterns and relationships that are invisible in code or spreadsheets.

It turns cold digits into something we can feel and explore. Numbers alone can whisper, but a moving image sings revealing harmonies, shapes and stories that speak a more human language.

What do you hope will be the impact of your research?

I hope this kind of visualisation will help uncover rare groups of cells in, for example, my research into how specific cell populations behave in diseases like cancer.

I want to see where the imperfections start, how they spread, and how we might stop them, bringing hope to those who need it most.

Sai Lekala, Dr Niall Geoghegan and Dr Alex Uboldi captured an image of a swarm of microscopic Toxoplasma parasites searching for a cell to invade.

Sai Lekkala explains the team’s glowing and magical image, resembling a jellyfish bloom drifting through the ocean.

Tell us about how you created and captured this image.

Toxoplasma parasites are extremely tiny (about 5 millionth of a metre long!). Through a technique called expansion microscopy, I enlarged these parasites to four times their normal size.

With the help of Dr Geoghegan from the Centre for Dynamic Imaging, we then imaged our sample on a confocal microscope, which provides high resolution imaging capabilities.

What inspired you to capture this moment in your research?

Walking through the WEHI hallways every day with projectors showing beautiful artwork from fellow researchers inspired me to capture something that may also be shown to the world one day.

How does visualising your work help you think differently about your science?

Having a visual representation of how parasites organise their machinery is quite important. If a protein is present on the surface of the parasite, it is more likely to be recognised by the immune system.

Microscopy allows me to answer such fundamental questions and helps narrow down which proteins to investigate.

What do you hope will be the impact of your research?

I hope that one day my work, alongside others in our lab and division can help in developing novel and effective vaccine and drug candidates against these parasites.

Hooked and wanting more? Dive into the world of science and discover how you can support WEHI’s transformative research: www.wehi.edu.au/artofscience

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Header image: Marina Leiwe’s Art of Science 2025 artwork Galaxy shows tumours growing in a mouse lung, with the colours indicating different gene deletions.