Tissue Chips

💬 Context

The scientific research and the cosmetic industry are adopting Tissue Chip platforms, developed from the computer chip industry, to accelerate their discovery process. I developed a tissue chip replicating a particular niche of the human pancreas for my doctoral dissertation. To simply show and explain what Tissue Chip platforms are to the lay audience, I designed this series of visuals.

👨🏽‍🎨 Role

Designer | Illustrator

🗿 Client

University of Florida | Dept. of Biomedical Engineering

💪🏼 Team

Consulting: Cherie Stabler, PhD + Matthew Ishahak, PhD + Ashutosh Agarwal, PhD

🛠 Tools

Illustrator | Photoshop | Solidworks | Figma

⏰ Timeline

Apr, Twenty20

🧐 Problem

Scientific Problem

Tissue chip platforms replicate a specific tissue/organ function of a living system on a microchip. These platforms can be used to test developing drugs or agents without having to invade a living body. The scientific manuscripts published in various journals exist to describe different types of tissue chips, their impact, and limitations. However, these bodies of work are written with a scientific audience in mind. For tissue chips to be “mainstream”, the scientific community struggles to gain the attention of the lay audience at large.

Lay Audience Problem

The information about tissue chips at large exists in the form of scientific text (often hidden behind paid walls), or by word of mouth (as it is explained by a scientist). A verbal or written explanation of this technology can often be jarring or abstract to the non-experts. The lay audience struggles to understand and/or visually grasp the scale and the function of tissue chips. In short, this is because of either lack of access to the information or because of scientific jargon.

Challenges

  1. Provide a visual form to highlight the tissue chip platform developed for my dissertation

  2. Engage the lay audience to be curious about our platform

  3. Create an advertisement for the tissue chip technology under development

🔲 Design Process

Overview

I designed a series of graphics for advertising the pancreatic tissue chip developed during my doctoral study. For this work, I embraced the philosophy to “let pictures tell the story”. The result translated beautifully in digital forms as well as on large prints used as artwork in our research facility.

Research + Workshop

I started the process by gathering everything that is involved in a tissue chip experiment. Having all of the components in front of me made it clear for me to identify which elements are essential to highlight.

 
 

Concept 1: Abstraction

First, I selected the critical element of our tissue chip (3 wells connected by 3 independent channels). I incorporated those elements into fundamental shapes (3 circles connected by 3 lines). I then added abstract layers and complexities to foreshadow various other elements needed to successfully utilize the tissue chip devices.

Concept 2: Ad Campaign

I leveraged digital 3D renderings + fabricated devices + illustrated designs to communicate concepts of our tissue chip. I was inspired by an ad by Apple called Wonderful Tools. I used the 3D rendering to demonstrate how the device was designed digitally at first.

Next, a photographed image of a physical/fabricated tissue chip device was overlayed on the same image to indicate the act of prototyping into a physical form. I used a human hand holding the tissue chip to drive the point that what the audience sees is indeed a physical object. The human hand also serves as a point of reference to draw attention to the scale of the tissue chip.

 
 

The Selected Design

🏆 This design was used for advertising our tissue chip in both digital and print formats. This image was printed (40in x 30in) and framed in the building of our research facility. I used resources from this project to write a news article for our department and to educate my audience via a Twitter thread. The work was also selected as a cover photo for an academic conference.

🪔 Takeaways

  1. Gather all elements needed for function. You must first know all of the elements. Lay them out. Workshop them. Then identify 1-3 key elements to shape the identity of the design

  2. Use of negative shapes and forms to highlight the sense of scale