resources
visualizations
presentations
lunch break
Distractions and amusements, with a sandwich and coffee.
biography · poster · CV
SPP / Cambridge, UK / Nov 2019
Staff Scientist
Canada's Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre at BC Cancer
570 W 7th Avenue
Vancouver BC
V5Z 4S6 Canada
martink@bcgsc.ca
@mkrzywinski
activities
With some very smart people, I work on problems in data visualization applied to cancer research and genome analysis. Previously I was involved in fingerprint mapping, system administration, computer security, fashion photography, medical imaging and LHC particle physics. My work is guided by a need to rationalize, make things pretty, combine science with art, mince words, find good questions, help make connections between ideas and explain complicated things. All while exercising snark.
very clickable
The commemorative 10th anniversary image is a two-dimensional barcode.
Similar to the kinds used in our lab, this large-capacity barcode format was
created in Japan, where it has become a meme for transmission of
personal information. The code is called QR Code and it can encode up
to 2,953 alphanumeric characters.
The QR Code has been used by the Pet Shop Boys for the artwork of the cover of their Integral single. The image on the album encodes the address ofthe group's website, petshopboys.co.uk.
The code's high capacity allowed us to generate a commemorative graphic. The graphic's content stores the full names of all present GSC employees, a link to our web site and a timestamp. To convert the dots to text and extract the content submit the barcode image to the online decoder.
You can generate QR codes and buy labeled products here.
>> by Martin Krzywinski and Stephanie McInnis
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news + thoughts
Anatomy of SARS-Cov-2
My poster showing the genome structure and position of mutations on all SARS-CoV-2 variants appears in the March/April 2022 issue of American Scientist.
An accompanying piece breaks down the anatomy of each genome — by gene and ORF, oriented to emphasize relative differences that are caused by mutations.
Cancer Cell cover
My cover design on the 11 April 2022 Cancer Cell issue depicts depicts cellular heterogeneity as a kaleidoscope generated from immunofluorescence staining of the glial and neuronal markers MBP and NeuN (respectively) in a GBM patient-derived explant.
LeBlanc VG et al. Single-cell landscapes of primary glioblastomas and matched explants and cell lines show variable retention of inter- and intratumor heterogeneity (2022) Cancer Cell 40:379–392.E9.
Browse my gallery of cover designs.
Nature Biotechnology cover
My cover design on the 4 April 2022 Nature Biotechnology issue is an impression of a phylogenetic tree of over 200 million sequences.
Konno N et al. Deep distributed computing to reconstruct extremely large lineage trees (2022) Nature Biotechnology 40:566–575.
Browse my gallery of cover designs.
Nature cover — Gene Genie
My cover design on the 17 March 2022 Nature issue depicts the evolutionary properties of sequences at the extremes of the evolvability spectrum.
Vaishnav ED et al. The evolution, evolvability and engineering of gene regulatory DNA (2022) Nature 603:455–463.
Browse my gallery of cover designs.
Happy 2022 `\pi` Day—
three one four: a number of notes
Celebrate `\pi` Day (March 14th) and finally hear what you've been missing.
“three one four: a number of notes” is a musical exploration of how we think about mathematics and how we feel about mathematics. It tells stories from the very beginning (314…) to the very (known) end of π (...264) as well as math (Wallis Product) and math jokes (Feynman Point), repetition (nn) and zeroes (null).
The album is scored for solo piano in the style of 20th century classical music – each piece has a distinct personality, drawn from styles of Boulez, Feldman, Glass, Ligeti, Monk, and Satie.
Each piece is accompanied by a piku (or πku), a poem whose syllable count is determined by a specific sequence of digits from π.
Check out art from previous years: 2013 `\pi` Day and 2014 `\pi` Day, 2015 `\pi` Day, 2016 `\pi` Day, 2017 `\pi` Day, 2018 `\pi` Day, 2019 `\pi` Day, 2020 `\pi` Day and 2021 `\pi` Day.
PNAS Cover — Earth BioGenome Project
My design appears on the 25 January 2022 PNAS issue.
The cover shows a view of Earth that captures the vision of the Earth BioGenome Project — understanding and conserving genetic diversity on a global scale. Continents from the Authagraph projection, which preserves areas and shapes, are represented as a double helix of 32,111 bases. Short sequences of 806 unique species, sequenced as part of EBP-affiliated projects, are mapped onto the double helix of the continent (or ocean) where the species is commonly found. The length of the sequence is the same for each species on a continent (or ocean) and the sequences are separated by short gaps. Individual bases of the sequence are colored by dots. Species appear along the path in alphabetical order (by Latin name) and the first base of the first species is identified by a small black triangle.
Lewin HA et al. The Earth BioGenome Project 2020: Starting the clock. (2022) PNAS 119(4) e2115635118.
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