Sacrifice for Science

Sacrifice for Science

PRATYASHA

A FEELING FOR THE ORGANISM

We call it a sacrifice and not a killing, to recognise the contribution of mice to the cause of science", I have been told.

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PRATYASHA

Comic by Pratyasha

In my final year, armed with some previous experience of observing how the lab works, I was finally allowed to take part in the mouse model experiments. When I took biology in high school, we had no animal dissection experiments in our curriculum but I knew what I was signing up for in the long run. At home, I had seen my mother gutting fish in the kitchen and had sometimes asked her for the discarded bits and pieces to get used to observing an organism for science. During the Covid lockdown era I spent hours taking apart the brains and eyes of fish to observe under my pet microscope so I knew for sure I was not going to get the ick from blood and innards.

Yet nothing could have prepared me for the shock of the first killing day. This was an animal that was scuttling around in its little box a while ago, squeaking, nibbling at the food pellets and poking its pink little nose out of the grilled lid. I closed my eyes. I had smelt its acrid odour when alive, sneezed at its dander and was now hit in the nose by the metallic smell of its blood. Then I opened my eyes… It was not easy for the seniors who had been doing this for years, it was hard on me too. Over time, I have made peace with the experiments and hope for a future that has simulation models to take the place

of mice models. “We call it a sacrifice and not a killing, to recognise the contribution of mice to the cause of science,” I have been told.

Sketching in the Lab

I started taking my daily journal to the lab for a variety of reasons. For one I had a lot of free time on my hands after finishing my lab chores and it was too much of a task to come back to my room and sketch in between tasks. On days when my interest in work was running thin, the thought of adding to my journal made me show up to the lab in spite of myself. Recognising my unique motivation, my lab seniors gifted me a sketchbook and some pens just for lab sketches. I sketched the shelves full of lab reagents, the different equipment and the people in the lab. This helped me feel more connected to the lab and its workings. On busier days I would take quick shaky photos and recreate the scene later on paper.

Note from the Author

All of these artworks are based on my time at the Immunology and Inflammation Research Lab at the School of Medical Sciences, IIT Kharagpur under the guidance of Dr. Gayatri Mukherjee (who supervised me for my Bachelors Thesis Project and is currently supervising my Masters Thesis Project). It was her Vaccines and Immunity course that first motivated me to study Immunology further. Ma’am has kindly permitted me at various times to use her lab as a source of artistic inspiration. She has put up with a lot of my antics and made me feel welcome as a student and artist at her lab through my intervals of waxing and waning interest in core life science research.

Sketching the experiments and theoretical concepts also helped me come up with fresh suggestions for the ongoing experiments. For instance, I read two seemingly unrelated papers and found a common point between two biological pathways from my doodle notes and that brought out new research questions. I had been finding it increasingly hard to explain to my parents through words alone, what the Immunology and Inflammation Research Lab did and what I was learning there. So some of my sketches turned into a series of comic strips demystifying the work of the lab.

When the mouse experiments started, I was forbidden from taking photos altogether due to ethical considerations, a rule that I abided by. The argument was that animal experiments are graphic in nature and can be shocking for the wider audience that views my art who may not be initiated to the world of life sciences research.

So I took it up as a challenge to sketch animal experiments in a sensitive way while still talking about the science involved. Quick pencil sketches during the experiment itself helped me work around the photography ban while still having sufficient documentation for my little personal project. One such sketch was my reference for the first panel of the comic strip Sacrifice for Science.

Illustrations by Pratyasha

About Pratyasha

Pratyasha is a visual artist and a final year student of Biotechnology at IIT Kharagpur. She combines her love for the life sciences and storytelling to create fanciful comics and paintings exploring the relationship of humans with nature.