Fiona explains her approach to scientific illustrations in Nature Career Feature
In the new Nature Career Feature Illustration: get your research the attention it deserves (A. Tay, Nature 586 (2020), 157–158) postdoc Dr. Fiona Naughton was interviewed and explains her approach to communicating her science: Use analogies and metaphors (preferably involving cats) to demonstrate the structural properties of 3D protein molecules and how they function.
Her 2D cartoon cats and anecdotes about cat behavior are not only an eagerly awaited treat in all her presentations but they also appear in her papers (see the inverted repeat symmetries in transporter proteins in a new light…) and in the image If Proteins Were Cats that won her the Art of Science contest at the 2020 Meeting of the Biophysical Society Meeting
If proteins were cats, the extended edition - entry in the Art of Science Image Contest at #bps20, featuring the transport cycle of bile acid symporter ASBT. Copyright © 2020 Fiona Naughton.
For more catsplanations see @ExplainedByCats on Twitter.
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