This animation was my Master’s Research Project at the University of Toronto.

Visuals are required in order to grasp the abstract concepts associated with the discipline of cellular and molecular biology. The piecewise method of teaching cellular and molecular biology is important to isolate concepts for students to focus on, but this also creates a lack of context and connections. There are many levels of organization within the cell, each with events that occur simultaneously and at different spatial and temporal scales. Textbooks can serve as the main source of visuals in an undergraduate biology course, yet visuals of isolated events do not allow for an appreciation of how the event is part of a larger network of events within a cell. Three-dimensional animation, with its ability to show dynamic processes and its ability to include auditory cues, is a tool that would be beneficial to depict the concept of scaling.

Award of Excellence, Student Animation category, Association of Medical Illustrators, 2015.

New Media Best of Show, Association of Medical Illustrators, 2015.

Jodie Jenkinson, PhD
University of Toronto

Gaël McGill, PhD
Harvard Medical School, Digizyme Inc.

Nicholas Woolridge, MSc
University of Toronto

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
Vesalius Trust