Haystack in a Heart Cell is a hands-on collage workshop exploring the fascinating research being done by heart scientists to understand the vast amount of complex information contained in each individual heart cell.

Haystack in a Heart CellWe collaborated with illustrator and artist Grace Holliday to develop a creative workshop using collage and paper craft.

Haystack in a Heart CellParticipants cut out their heart cell, then decorated it with RNA and proteins - the gene expression of the cell.

Haystack in a Heart CellThe information about how genes are expressed in each tiny cell is an enormously large and complex set of information - the haystack in the heart cell! It is this gene expression information that scientists are using to understand more about heart cells.

Haystack in a Heart CellOnce people had completed their heart cell, we took photos of each one and combined all the cells to make a whole digital heart. Can you spot the special golden cardiac stem cells?

Haystack in a Heart CellHaystack in a Heart Cell was presented at the Imperial Festival 2017.

Collaborators: Grace Holliday (Illustrator and Artist), Michela Noseda (Research Fellow).

Creative Producer: Ellen Dowell