Need a special piece of artwork?
I create personalized artwork based on individual science. Here are examples of custom pieces. I will collaborate with you to ensure the artwork is unique. These make great gifts for graduates, mentors, or birthdays.
For options, timing, and pricing, please contact me directly at slukacells@gmail.com.
Joe’s Thesis. 16x20” multimedia on board.
Designed for Dr. Joe Lesnak's thesis, which explored musculoskeletal pain, muscle-nerve-immune system interactions, and sex differences in testosterone's role. His findings indicate testosterone prevents chronic muscle pain, highlights unique immune differences in muscle tissue by sex, and shows that strength training activates androgen receptors to mitigate pain. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas Dallas.
This multimedia piece features the chemical structures of testosterone and estrogen in the background, with painted muscle cross-sections. Nociceptors and immune cells illustrate system interactions. Blue and pink signify unique male and female mechanisms, while purple represents shared mechanisms.
Tendonitis, 16x20” acrylic on canvas
Dr. Ruth Chimenti studies pain from Achilles tendonitis. She looks at changes in the body caused by this pain using biomechanical analysis, ultrasound, MRI, and psychological assessments. As a physical therapist and researcher, she conducts clinical trials and studies biomarkers. Her research shows that education paired with personalized exercise helps reduce pain and improve function. She also found that most pain comes from peripheral sources and that ultrasound can identify local changes in the tendon. Dr. Chimenti is an Assistant Professor at the University of Iowa.
This painting beautifully depicts the tendon, highlighting the collagen fibers, which are represented in a striking green hue. These collagen fibers are usually organized and aligned, laying parallel to one another at the top of the painting. However, at the site of tendinopathy, immune cells depicted in a soft pink infiltrate the area, signaling an inflammatory response. As the collagen fibers attempt to repair themselves and lay down new fibers in the injured region, they become increasingly disorganized. Engaging in exercise and encouraging movement play a vital role in promoting the realignment of these fibers back into their standard, parallel structure, ultimately facilitating healing and restoring function.
Pain and Sng, 12-17” Mixed media on paper
mounted and framed to 20x30”
Designed for Dr. Chih-Cheng Chen at Academia Sinica in Taiwan. Dr. Chen studies molecular mechanisms of pain and sng (a sensationsimilar to soreness in Chinese). He has focused on understanding ion channels, particularly purinergic and acid-sensing ion channels. His work has discovered a unique contribution of proprioceptors (muscle spindles) in pain.
This piece used acrylic paint and markers. It was drawn in a scroll format in the Chinese tradition to. The mountains are action potentials, the trees are neurons. Boulders are the sensory neurons with the axons forming a river. Bushes are designed to show the ion channels 3D structure and their is a proprioceptor forest, similar to a bamboo forest. Lastly the two Chinese characters were added and read Pain
MS Brain, 16x20” Multimedia on Canvas
This multiple sclerosis brain was designed for Dr. Howard L Weiner a neurologist and neuroscientist, at Harvard Medical School in celebration of his 80th birthday. Dr. Weiner’s research focuses on multiple sclerosis and has focused on brain imaging to examine disease severity and microglia activation. He discovered a prominent role of the immune system, particularly T-cells, in multiple sclerosis and pioneered the use of immunotherapy for the treatment of multiple sclerosis.
This multimedia piece collages brain images from Dr. Weiner’s published manuscripts onto a brain. The brain is then covered with map pins and strings run between the pins to represent axonal connections between sites. Microglia are painted on the background. The strings over the patches of microglia are painting in reds, oranges, and yellow to showing the damage to the axons in the area of neuroinflammation. The background is painted with T-cells and antibodies, and a custom frame was developed with brain images collaged in the background. I worked directly with Dr. Weiner’s colleagues to create this unique piece.
Adam’s Experimental Design, 16x20” Multimedia
Created specifically for Dr. Adam Janowski, this artwork is based on his significant thesis work in which he developed an animal model of chronic fatigue syndrome. This innovative model incorporated the activation of immune cells alongside muscle fatiguing stimuli, resulting in a prolonged, long-lasting fatigue response. In addition to his research, Adam received advanced training in statistical analysis during his thesis, enhancing the rigor of his work. He is currently serving as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Iowa, where he continues to contribute to the field.
Created to show the intricate scientific process. Often, scientists take the time to draw out their hypotheses on paper, whiteboards, or chalkboards. The background was thoughtfully developed to represent a traditional blackboard, complete with hypotheses, statistical analyses, and various graphics. Chalk pastels were then used to draw the blood vessel with diverse immune cells emanating from it and flowing across the painting. The artwork is framed with a simple wood frame, reminiscent of the framing styles often associated with older chalkboards.
Sickle Cell and Pain, 8x10” Multimedia on Board
Created for Dr. Cheryl Stucky, a professor at the University of Wisconsin Medical College in Milwaukee. It was commissioned by her postdoctoral fellow as a thank you gift as she moved on to her first faculty position. Dr. Stucky is a brilliant pain researcher who has made seminal contributions to peripheral mechanisms involved in pain, including the role of TRPA1 and keratinoytes. Dr. Stucky and her postdoc mentee Dr. Sadler studied the pain of sickle cell disease.
For this piece I collaged published manuscripts by Drs. Sadler and Stucky they had published while she was a postdoctoral fellow. On top of the collage I painted normal blood cells (in red) intermingling with sickled blood cells (in purple). Nociceptors, responsible for transmitting painful stimuli (nociceptive stimuli) to the central nervous system, were painting across the front to show the role of pain in sickle cell disease.
Ashley’s Neurons. 12x24” Acrylic on Canvas
Created for Dr. Ashley Plumb as a gift for defending her thesis. Ashley studied the role of neurons in the brainstem and sex differences as they related to pain. She performed a series of experiments examining the protective function of testosterone. She characterized the serotonin cells in females including their expression of different neurons transmitters using a technique called RNAscope. Ashley is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas Dallas. Ashley is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas Dallas.
This painting showed the fluorescently labeled neurons as often seen under a microscope with the center brighter than the edges. Different colored markers are used to label different types of neurotransmitters in neurons, often with multiple neurotransmitters in the same neuron. The green lines represent axons coming from other regions of the brain bringing signals to the local neurons.
Neuroimmune. 8x10” Multimedia
Made specifically for Dr. Kasuhiro Hayashi, while a postdoctoral fellow, this artwork reflects the significant contributions he has made to the field. Kazu studied how purinergic receptors, along with the immune system, mediate the complex experience of pain. Through his research, he discovered a unique male-specific mechanism that plays a crucial role in the development of muscle pain. Dr. Hayashi's expertise have led him to his current position as an Assistant Professor at Kyoto University, where he has developed an active research program.
This artwork piece was intricately collaged from a publication in the journal PAIN, which detailed the important role of local macrophages, P2X7 receptors, and interleukin-1 beta in the complex generation of pain. Nociceptors and macrophages are layered over the top of the original article, creating a striking representation of these critical components in pain .