Diving for Pills

Celebrated by a recent exhibition at its new building in White City, London, the MRC LMS has launched a book and website with over 100 interpretations of the phrase ‘A Picture of Health’ gathered from a broad cross-section of society.

As his Picture of Health, Dr Tobias Warnecke, head of the MRC LMS Molecular Systems group, chose this image of bacteria-like organisms called archaea growing in a Petri dish. Read why:

"We work on archaea – tiny single-celled organisms not unlike bacteria but with a molecular toolkit that, in many respects, is more similar to that of humans. Some of these archaea flourish in odd places. The bright pink Haloferax volcanii colonies in this picture, for example, were originally isolated from the Dead Sea. They love extremely salty environments where few other organisms survive. Other archaea thrive closer to home: in the human gut. Here, they have carved out a living for themselves amongst legions of bacteria. We study how these archaea defend themselves against bacterial competitors, looking for new types of antibacterial molecules that can be used to combat antimicrobial resistance. This is my picture of health as it reminds me that solutions to health challenges, now and in the future, can come from the strangest of places."

Read more about Evolving Visions of Health - a special collection from A Picture of Health here

Written by Lindsey Goff

Lindsey Goff

Editor-in-Chief

Formerly immunologist for Cancer Research UK, Lindsey has since moved into the field of scientific publishing. She looks after all BPoD editorial matters.

• Image by Tobias Warnecke
• Molecular Systems group, MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences, London, UK
• Image copyright held by Tobias Warnecke