When visitors enter the building where Ahna Skop works, the first thing they see is a large art installation on the lobby wall. Looming overhead are what appear to be leaves, bubbles, an enormous multicolored Easter egg, and a worm. But this building is not an art museum. It is the University of Wisconsin–Madison Biotechnology Center, and the person responsible for the art installation is Dr. Ahna Skop, a professor in the Department of Genetics. Skop studies how animal cells divide, a process that is quite complex. It is also quite beautiful. Skop has had the unique opportunity to combine her artistic sensibilities with her scientific skills in studying and communicating this beautiful complexity to others.
A recipient of the prestigious Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), Skop is also committed to excellence in teaching, advocacy, and outreach. Besides being a cell biologist, she is a firm believer in the power of art to communicate science; and as an affiliate faculty member in both Life Sciences Communication and the UW–Madison Arts Institute, she mentors students in all three areas of study.
Skop grew up in a family of artists with a house full of art. Her father was a sculptor and medical illustrator. Her mother was a ceramist and art educator. All of her siblings went into the arts. As an undergraduate student at Syracuse University, Skop bucked the family trend and majored in biology (although she did minor in ceramics). A work-study opportunity introduced her to the tiny nematode worm called Caenorhabditis elegans, which is a common research animal for the study of cell biology and genetics. While at Syracuse, an image of a dividing cell in a textbook fueled her interest in cell division. She circled the photo. “I really loved it visually,” she says. “That’s what drew me to the science as a student.”
As a graduate student in Cell and Molecular Biology at UW–Madison, she followed her passion and studied cell division. When cell division goes wrong, it can result in cancer, birth defects or neurodegenerative disease. Her mentor, John White (now an emeritus professor of Cell and Regenerative Biology), was an innovator in scientific imaging and invented a widely used microscope. Still working with C. elegans, Skop took photographs of the dividing cells she saw under the microscope and was inspired to make “worm art.”
Since her days in graduate school, Skop has designed logos for the biennial International C. elegans Conference. In 1997 she proposed an art show featuring the worm at the conference. Some said, “Your career is going to be over if you do that,” but her mentor gave her the go-ahead. The “Worm Art Show” was a hit and is now a highlight of the conferences. Scientists in the “worm community” have used their creativity to celebrate their science. “It’s just a great community that allowed me to be myself,” she says. “It’s really supportive of all views and walks of life.”
While studying C. elegans in the White lab, Skop was fascinated by a structure formed during cell division, the midbody. It is a fascination that continues to this day.
When an animal cell gets ready to divide, it first duplicates all of its contents, which will be distributed equally between the two daughter cells. The cell membrane pinches in around the center, then the cell stretches out until it resembles a dumbbell. As the two new cells pull apart, the midbody appears as a small dense particle in the middle of the bridge between them.
First described by German biologist Walther Flemming in 1891, midbodies (or Flemming bodies, as they were first known) were generally dismissed as functionless vestiges of cell division. In the late 1970s, Michael Mullins and Ryoko Kuriyama were among the very few scientists studying the midbody. “Those two people lost their careers over it,” said Skop. “They were booed out of meetings.” Mullins and Kuriyama moved on to other research topics.
As the tools used to study cells grew more sophisticated, it became possible to learn more about midbodies. During her postdoctoral work at the University of California–Berkeley, Skop consulted with Mullins and Kuriyama and used their protocols to isolate midbodies. Then, using new tools in genetics and protein biology, Skop discovered that many of the proteins in midbodies are necessary for successful cell division. That work was published in the prestigious journal, Science, with her image of dividing cells and midbodies gracing the journal’s cover in blue, purple, pink, green, and orange.
Having established the importance of the midbody proteins in cell division, Skop joined the faculty at UW–Madison, where she continues to study the midbody and the midbody remnant. As two dividing cells finally separate, the bridge between them is cut on either side of the midbody. The midbody remnant is then released into the intercellular space. For decades, this remnant was seen as the leftovers of the division process—the garbage can.
But the midbody remnant is not garbage being jettisoned from the cell, like an empty bottle destined for the recycling plant. Newer research instead reveals that there is a message in that bottle. That message is RNA.
In addition to proteins, the midbody and midbody remnant contain the RNA instructions for making more proteins. Midbody remnants can be engulfed by nearby cells, or they can travel via the bloodstream to distant cells. Whatever their route, they deliver the genetic information they carry into the recipient cell, influencing the cell’s fate. The RNA is “instructive material that tells the cell what to do,” says Skop. “You can divide out of control or you can just maintain the cell and not do anything or you could turn yourself into a neuron.”
All midbodies are not alike. Some RNA is common to all midbodies, but some RNA is unique to each cell type from which the midbody arises, whether it’s a stem cell, a nerve cell, or a cancer cell. “It’s like a signature,” says Skop.
Cancer cells proliferate out of control, causing tumors and spreading throughout the body. Cancer cells also release a lot of midbodies. In fact, research in Skop’s lab supports a role for midbodies in the spread of cancer. The overlooked midbody, once thought of as garbage, has turned out to be an important part of cell division and communication. Research on midbody biology has yielded information that might now have important biomedical applications. By identifying the unique RNA in midbodies originating from cancer cells, it may be possible to design drugs to block their action and thus inhibit cancer spread. Midbodies might also be used to deliver drugs more specifically to cancer cells, an advantage over current drugs that attack both cancer cells and healthy cells.
Skop began by studying the basic science of cell division. “In a million years, I never would have thought it would be that important,” she says. “I just love the process [of cell division], but now I recognize the massive biomedical side of this.”
Much of the science done in Skop’s lab involves visualization—looking through microscopes and taking photos or other images of observed cells. The beauty Skop sees in those images feeds her scientific curiosity, but she doesn’t separate her artistic sensibility from her science. “They’re all about probing nature in my mind, because nature has to be understood and felt in lots of different ways,” says Skop. “I’m a cell biologist because of my upbringing in the arts, because, visually, that’s what I love.” She embraces her artistic side and integrates it into her scientific work.
On a practical level, Skop uses art to help make science accessible to the general public by communicating it visually. Scientific art draws people in, engages them, making them eager to learn more. It piques their curiosity, which can lead to discovery and understanding.
If there’s one thing an artistic person like Skop can’t stand it’s a blank wall. So the walls of her office are covered with art, as are the walls of the Biotech Center. The giant images at the entrance depict a mustard plant, budding yeast cells, a fruit fly larva, and her beloved C. elegans. Visitors to the building can get a sense of the research that goes on inside, since those four organisms are commonly studied in genetics labs. Skop also had a hand in both a 40-foot art installation in the Biotech Center called “Genetic Reflections” and a coloring book with the same title.
You don’t have to visit the Biotech Center to see “Genetic Reflections.” The coloring book inspired by the installation is widely available. Skop curated “TINY: Art from Microscopes,” an art exhibition at the Dane County Airport that showcased the work of UW–Madison scientists. The subject of scientific art needn’t be microscopic, however, to be beautiful. It can be as big as the universe. Skop helped start the annual Cool Science Image Contest and serves as one of its judges. The contest is open to all UW–Madison scientists, no matter what the size of their subjects.
Some of Skop’s science art is on display at the Wisconsin Science Museum on South Park Street in Madison, where she serves on the board of directors. When she first arrived in Wisconsin, Skop was impressed by the impact the state has had on scientific discovery. She hopes to bring more of Wisconsin’s science to the public. “We have so much biotech in town. I think over time it will evolve into something bigger, which I’m excited about.”
A self-described visual thinker and creative problem-solver, Skop herself is dyslexic, and she strives to make her teaching and mentoring accessible to students with different learning styles and disabilities. Her innovative teaching methods garnered her the Chancellor’s Inclusive Excellence Teaching Award at UW—Madison. In her upper-level undergraduate course called “Genomics and Proteomics,” she engages her students through active learning. Each student selects a gene or protein associated with a human disease that means something to them and creates a website about it. Instead of lectures and exams, Skop facilitates students teaching each other through presentations. Working from the scientific literature, they learn about genetics and the methods used to study genes and proteins, but they also learn about effective science communication. Students learn more than science. They learn confidence.
Skop has also received the American Society for Cell Biology Prize in Inclusivity, because she is a fierce advocate for students from underrepresented groups and women in science. She sees diversity as a source of creativity and innovation and strives to make sure that science is accessible to everyone. She is passionate about increasing opportunities for the underrepresented students in her own lab, and—through service—for other students both within the university and beyond.
One way Skop celebrates diversity is through food. She has a cooking blog, “Lab Culture: A Recipe for Innovation in Science,” where scientists from diverse cultures share their love of food–and recipes. There is also a cookbook in the works. Sharing food is a way to “realize the commonality between us,” she says, “and to celebrate the differences.” Not surprisingly, she uses food to communicate science, too, decorating cakes with frosted images of dividing cells, for example.
Given that Ahna Skop grew up in a family of artists, it might seem surprising that she found herself doing genetic research—and loving it. She was even told, as a graduate student, that she was “too creative for science.” In other words, she didn’t belong. That was wrong. Instead of being an impediment, her creativity has proven to be an asset in her career as a scientist, as a teacher, as a mentor, and as an advocate. In fact, a 2008 study in the Journal of Psychology of Science and Technology reported that Nobel Prize-winning scientists were more likely than other scientists to have hobbies in the arts.
Art is more than a hobby to Skop. As astronaut, physician, engineer, and dancer Mae Jemison once said, “The difference between science and the arts is not that they are different sides of the same coin, or even different parts of the same continuum, but rather, they are manifestations of the same thing.”
Skop embraces diversity and strives to look at her work—and the world—from many different viewpoints. She brings her own unique perspective to everything she does, opening doors that had been closed to her, and holding doors open for those who follow.
