art + science
Bloomberg Businessweek Design Conference — San Francisco, 2013
science ♥ design
Together with Alberto Cairo, I presented at the Bloomberg Businessweek Design Conference (highlights) on the topic of design and communication in the sciences.
Alberto, as the journalist, motivated why communication should include access to detail through an engaging narrative. He made the distinction between the specialist (heavy on detail) and the communicator (focus on narrative) and emphasized that the distinction is artificial, though often played out (watch video).
I, as the scientist, underscored the importance of clear communication between scientists. As the specialists, they are often very poor communicators. Pick up any science journal and you'll quickly discover that scientists either aren't good at telling stories or are discouraged to do so by the medium. The consequence is the same: papers read like a wall of text. TL;DR anyone? The quality of visual communication in general ranges from muddled to abysmal (watch video).
We need more leaders in the field, such as Nature Publishing Group, to reward and emphasize good visual communication (e.g. Nature Cancer Review 2013 Figure Calendar).
Our presentations concluded with a 15 minute moderated discussion with Sam Grobart, senior Businesssweek writer. Everyone got a little cheeky. Good fun.
presentation video
Watch: my presentation, conversation with Alberto Cairo, moderated by Sam Grobart. (Bloomberg TV), Albert Cairo's presentation.
presentation slides
This was a lightning 7 minute talk. I did more planning about what to say than I usually do, given that there was virtually no opportunity for any kind of backtracking, and include a running narrative below each slide.
download presentation
My slides are available as PDF, keynote (zipped) or Quicktime. The format is 16:9 HD.
Bloomberg Businessweek Design Issue
On 28 Jan 2013, Bloomberg Businessweek Design Issue will capture the ideas from the conference and the personalities that generated them.
During the conference, each talk was captured in a series of sketches by Tom Wujec: my talk sketch and moderated discussion sketch.
Cell Genomics cover
Our cover on the 11 January 2023 Cell Genomics issue depicts the process of determining the parent-of-origin using differential methylation of alleles at imprinted regions (iDMRs) is imagined as a circuit.
Designed in collaboration with with Carlos Urzua.
Akbari, V. et al. Parent-of-origin detection and chromosome-scale haplotyping using long-read DNA methylation sequencing and Strand-seq (2023) Cell Genomics 3(1).
Browse my gallery of cover designs.
Science Advances cover
My cover design on the 6 January 2023 Science Advances issue depicts DNA sequencing read translation in high-dimensional space. The image showss 672 bases of sequencing barcodes generated by three different single-cell RNA sequencing platforms were encoded as oriented triangles on the faces of three 7-dimensional cubes.
More details about the design.
Kijima, Y. et al. A universal sequencing read interpreter (2023) Science Advances 9
Browse my gallery of cover designs.
Regression modeling of time-to-event data with censoring
If you sit on the sofa for your entire life, you’re running a higher risk of getting heart disease and cancer. —Alex Honnold, American rock climber
In a follow-up to our Survival analysis — time-to-event data and censoring article, we look at how regression can be used to account for additional risk factors in survival analysis.
We explore accelerated failure time regression (AFTR) and the Cox Proportional Hazards model (Cox PH).
Dey, T., Lipsitz, S.R., Cooper, Z., Trinh, Q., Krzywinski, M & Altman, N. (2022) Points of significance: Regression modeling of time-to-event data with censoring. Nature Methods 19.
Music video for Max Cooper's Ascent
My 5-dimensional animation sets the visual stage for Max Cooper's Ascent from the album Unspoken Words. I have previously collaborated with Max on telling a story about infinity for his Yearning for the Infinite album.
I provide a walkthrough the video, describe the animation system I created to generate the frames, and show you all the keyframes
The video recently premiered on YouTube.
Renders of the full scene are available as NFTs.
Gene Cultures exhibit — art at the MIT Museum
I am more than my genome and my genome is more than me.
The MIT Museum reopened at its new location on 2nd October 2022. The new Gene Cultures exhibit featured my visualization of the human genome, which walks through the size and organization of the genome and some of the important structures.
