Scientific, medical illustration and animation: how doctors and scientists communicate with each other, students and the rest of humanity

This post we want to give a general idea of ​​the area in which we work. In the USA, Europe, Canada and Australia, the public is aware of it, since the field of scientific and medical illustration itself is much better developed than ours. We will recall the history of the issue, describe how things are now, what tasks are solved by the main biomedical visualization studios, tell you about the organizations that research and supervise this market, and also share some statistics.

What is it all about? From drawing corpses to three-dimensional animation of molecules and viruses

In our body there are about 206 bones of different shapes and sizes, more than 600 muscles and a difficult number of nerves, vessels, and especially all kinds of cells related to various tissues and organs. If you go deeper, you will see a picture of a huge amount of proteins, RNA and other molecules, each of which performs a specific function, and small violations can have a dramatic effect on the vital activity of the organism. Suffice it to recall prions, which, due to improper folding of the molecule, can cause serious diseases.

Living systems are so complex that it is impossible to describe them in detail using words or formulas. Nevertheless, the description is absolutely necessary for understanding the mechanisms of work and the causes of the breakdown of certain biological structures. To solve descriptive problems, doctors and naturalists from ancient times learned to make correct sketches and diagrams both of the structure of our own organism, and of surrounding animals and plants, which can be beneficial to us, or cause harm. If at the time of Galen, medical and scientific illustration was naive and inaccurate, which, by the way, did not prevent his work to be in demand for more than 1,300 years, then, starting with Andreas Vezalia , it began to take shape as a discipline and an important tool in the training and work of doctors and scientists .
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Examples of early medical illustrations. ( Source )



The parts of the human body depicted by Andreas Vesalieus. A page from the book De Humani Corporis Fabrica, 1543 ( source ).

Illustration of how the scientific method received a new stimulus for development after the first magnifying devices began to appear, and Hook , Leeuwenhoek , Malpighi , Grew, and other naturalists who began to describe the microworld and prepared the basis for the emergence of cellular theory and understanding of the microscopic anatomy of living objects began .



Cut the stem of the plant. The author of the illustration is Nehemiah Gru. From the book “The Anatomy of Plants. “Before the Royal Society”. 1682 ( Source )





Illustrations by Robert Hooke, included in the book Micrographia, published in 1665 ( source ). Thanks to such drawings, living cells got their name and attracted the attention of researchers.

Currently, biology students in the process of learning are still sketching microscopic preparations and cockroaches opened with a scalpel, but the scientific illustration has long been a separate complex discipline that solves primarily communication and educational tasks, not research ones. The relevance of this kind of activity is growing, since the volume and complexity of scientific and medical knowledge increases faster than the ability of people to understand it, and the schemes, models and animations make it possible to study complex topics more effectively. If in the XVI century, a doctor and part-time medical illustrator walked around cemeteries at night in search of bodies for opening and sketching, now such radical approaches are not required, and a wide range of specialists from scientists to professionals in graphic design, three-dimensional modeling, computer animations Of course, the tremendous progress in science and scientific methods plays a major role in the evolution of medical illustration. Electron microscopy, X-ray analysis and molecular dynamics have shifted the attention of specialists in this field from anatomy and microbiology to molecular medicine, cell biology and biochemistry. Thanks to new methods, it has become possible to determine and demonstrate the structure and mechanism of operation of individual molecules , large molecular complexes, and even viruses .



Protein kinesin moving the cell vesicle along the microtubule. Studio XVIVO . year 2013.



Influenza virus particles on the surface of epithelial cells of the upper respiratory tract. Studio Hybrid .



The internal structure of the human immunodeficiency virus . Studio Visual Science. 2010

Who needs scientific and medical illustrators?

Many high-tech enterprises, whether they are pharmaceutical companies, medical equipment manufacturers, or private clinics, need to inform potential customers, partners or investors about the essence of their development and services offered. Moreover, if they come to a broad design studio with an order for the production of presentation materials, a website or animated videos, most likely, getting an adequate result will be very time consuming and long. The reason is that a typical designer or illustrator may have no idea about, for example, how the nanoparticles are based on the copolymer D, L-lactide and glycolide, or whether the Le Fora fracture of the first type affects the ethmoid bone. Of course, you can indulge in long explanations, throw designers with reference from atlases and references to Wikipedia, but this approach seriously slows down the process and, given its high energy consumption, does not guarantee the desired result. At the same time, the specialist’s time spent by the client, who “teaches” the designer, the number of revisions and iterations, make the total cost of this approach very high. That is why a specific niche of biomedical illustration, animation and design was formed, in which usually either individual specialists or teams combine competencies in the field of graphic design, medicine and science.
In addition to high-tech companies, of course, high-tech design, of course, need universities and other educational institutions and projects. According to the latest report of the American Association of Medical Illustrators , about 39% of specialists in this field work at a constant rate at various universities and academic institutions. Notable examples include David Godcell , who works at the Scripps Institute in California, a medical animation team at the Walter and Eliza Hall Medical Research Institute in Melbourne, and Graham Johnson , who develops algorithms for visualizing and modeling molecules and cell structures at the University of California in San Francisco .





Internal structure of Mycoplasma mycoides. David Godsell. 2011.

These illustrations are very impressive in their detail. It is noteworthy that all of them are made in pencil and watercolor. David outlines the outlines of molecules in molecular imaging programs and then manually forms such an ornament. The disadvantage of this approach is that Godsell, as an artist, can interpret the shapes of some objects in its own way, without delving into scientific data, which affects scientific accuracy. Plus - that this way you can do a lot of illustrations of even very large objects in a short time.

Slightly more than a third of medical illustrators have farm companies, medical centers and clinics, publishing houses, law firms specializing in health care (often in legal proceedings, it is necessary to illustrate, for example, a person’s injury ) as clients and employers, as well as advertising and design studios. The rest of the specialists surveyed by the association were employed in non-profit organizations and foundations (18%), and also worked for some government offices (7%).

According to the study, in 2009 the average salary of medical illustrators was $ 61,000 per year with a range of $ 27,000 to $ 150,000. Studio managers and art directors earned more ($ 93,000 and $ 75,000 per year, respectively). Graphic designers, animators, and multimedia content developers earned approximately $ 47,000 to $ 58,000.
In total, employment of more than 550 professional members of the association was analyzed.

Part of biomedical visualization is scientific illustration and animation. Specificity consists in the most accurate work with the original data - most often the results of experiments or in silico modeling. The tasks are the same - communication in a professional environment (starting from a certain level of fame of the author), presentation, illustration of scientific publications, textbooks and other educational materials.

Scientists in everyday tasks and independently well find a common language with each other. Presentations at conferences are usually primitive from the point of view of graphic design and graphics, but in most cases they confidently solve their task, because the audience is prepared and relatively undemanding to the level of presentation. Difficulties arise when a scientist has to explain something to an audience with a different level of immersion in the subject, such as students, or in general from another field, such as business, in the case of investors or partners at the stage of commercialization and popularization of developments. In this situation, it is much more difficult to explain, and high-quality visual materials become necessary, in order not to be limited to Richard Dawkins’s set of arguments in this passage: coub.com/view/1j2dqvn .

Biomedical illustration now

On the market of biomedical illustration and animation there are several large companies and quite a few smaller players and individual illustrators and designers. Most experts in this field are concentrated in the United States, Canada, and quite a bit in Europe and Australia. One of the leading animation studios, XVivo, has become widely known for its large-scale three-dimensional roller Inner Life of the Cell, which demonstrates the molecular processes that occur in a leukocyte when it is activated during inflammation. The video was made for the Harvard molecular and cell biology educational program, but quickly gained a much wider audience. At its creation, the company used the work of Harvard students (rumor has it — for free).
Many well-known studios pay more attention not to intracellular processes, but to the anatomy and physiology of the human body. Examples of such work are shown by Hybrid, Zygote , Nucleus , Brian Cristie , Invivo , Anatomyblue , AXS Studio . In this case, the matter is not limited to animation: the studios create training three-dimensional models, illustrations and applications. Such a subject is relevant not only for educational institutions, but also for hospitals and clinics .

In order to get an idea of ​​the field of scientific visualization, you can get acquainted with the works of participants in competitions that are held in this area. The most famous of them was the Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge , which is held by Science magazine in conjunction with the National Science Foundation, in which we also participated in 2010 and 2011. It focuses on the natural sciences, and participants send both illustrations and infographics, and animation, and even educational games. Computer graphics and animation created in scientific design studios are also presented at SIGGRAPH competitions, whose range of participants is not limited to medical illustration. The effectiveness of communication and marketing in the field of medicine and health is assessed by the jury of the competition, conducted by the organization Medical Marketing & Media . Another noticeable, but several handing over the position of the competition is called Vesalius, and in it the focus is precisely on the educational component.

The Association of Medical Illustrators, which has already been mentioned, is engaged in certification of specialists, coordinates a kind of trade union initiatives, conducts market research and produces analytics and, by the way, has existed since 1946. They also hold their own competition and exhibition at the annual meeting of members, the works of the winners of which can be found on the organization’s website. In the competition, unlike SEVC, emphasis is placed on the medical component.



Photo from the first meeting of the AMI. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 1946 ( Source )

In addition to contests, a certain section of the field can be given by the catalog of medical illustrators , which is published annually, or by photobanks specializing in this subject, where hundreds of thousands of illustrations are presented, from experimental photos to sines art.

If the topic is interesting, in the next posts we will talk about a much wider field of communication in the field of biomedical areas of so-called. healthcare communication, part of which is biomedical illustration and animation.