New Year’s Card 2024
As we look to the blank canvas of 2025, the Reilly Lab is excited to share our annual New Year's card: "Mutated Masterpieces". Inspired by the fact small changes to our genetic code can lead to innovative outcomes, we decided to emphasize both the science and creativity that are critical for research. In our third year as a lab, we’re continuing to explore the genome’s 3.1 x 10^9 base pairs and how small mutations can have big impacts on our health, traits, and evolution. While this is a large search space, we know our work is enabled by a huge team of collaborators, mentors, trainees, funders, friends, family, administrators, and more, contributing in ways large and small. So thank you.
We had a lot of fun (and flexed our AI chops) adding some 'science' to each of these classical artistic works. Scroll down to see some 'curatorial' notes on these 'supplemental figures'.
May your 2025 be a year where even small changes lead to breakthroughs, learning, and shared success.
-The Reilly Lab
(left) Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry (1412-1416) – The Limbourg Brothers (Paul, Hermann and Jean),
A ‘book of hours’, this painting comes from a series of miniature paintings in the international gothic style. Much like our science today, the work was highly technical as well as highly creative, requiring the artists to use recent advances in fine brushes and lenses.
Partly functioning like a calendar, a page was dedicated to each of the 12 months. The front of our card is comes from the January Illumination. It celebrates the (since waned) tradition of giving gifts in the New Year. The patron of the book, Jean de Berry is seen at the center in blue (swapped out for Steve). All of the lab members have been incorporated into the painting so get out your microscope to find them. We transform the scene into a a sort of ‘lab meeting’ where each member exchanges the science they’ve created over the year.
Click any painting to enlarge
The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp (1632) – Rembrandt
Here we find a highly scientific scene from the Dutch Golden Age. In our twist, our intrepid undergrad researcher (Madeline) is dissecting her PhD mentor (Jared) who always gives her his all. Nearby, other lab members (Bahar, Aviv, Catherine, and Johanna) watch on.
American Gothic (1930) – Grant Wood
In one of the most recognizable American paintings of the last century (and most parodied), we take our scientific spin on it. Our postgrad Elise and PhD student Ovaun, along with their multichannel pipette swapped in for a pitchfork, get ready for a day farming knowledge in the lab.
Beethoven with the Manuscript of the Missa Solemnis (1830) – Joseph Karl Stieler
This famous rendition of Beethoven shows him hard at work on his never to be finished manuscript. Our equally sartorial postdoc Tian swaps in, here hard at work on what seems like never ending coding. Unlike Beethoven, Tian’s manuscript will be finished!
Supper at Emmaus (1601) – Caravaggio
Our newest postgrad Zhenting, has recently appeared in lab. Her presence in front of chemicals and beakers is shocking to the others, as up til now she’s only been a computational scientist!
Girl with a Pearl Earring (1665) – Johannes Vermeer
In one of the most recognizable paintings ever created, we see our postdoc Erin taking on the post of this Dutch woman. Based on spectrography, physicists have suggested that the pearl earning is not a pearl at all, but polished tin. Riffing on this, we placed some of our favorite perl code (from the MPRA match package from the Tewhey Lab) behind Erin.
Lady with an Ermine (1491) – Leonardo da Vinci
In his old age, da Vinci compiled a bestiary from his studies. While not completing a rotation working in the mouse facility, our student Grace is compiling her own bestiary of chromatin accessibility sites in the brain!
La Gitana (1920) – Louis Kronberg
This beautiful oil painting is by one of the few Americans in our gallery. Here we see the labs resident German rotation student Kira. While the original has the woman peering off into space, Kira is clearly speculating on some complex code.
The Mona Lisa (1506) – Leonardo da Vinci
Here we see Thanh Thanh step into one of the most famous smiles ever captured. Is she happy about her work, presented in the latest issue of Science Magazine in her hand? An upcoming amazing manuscript on her mind? Or is she thinking about her next big fancy meal? We’ll never know.
Napoleon Crossing the Alps (1801) – Jacques-Louis Davis
This is one of a series of five painting created of Napolean extolling his victories throughout Europe. In our version we see our incoming postdoc Edwin, astride vanquished lab equipment, conquering his time learning the MPRA in our lab.
The Scream (1893) – Edvard Munch
This rendition of the scream sees our PhD student Mackenzie on a pier (or is it a lab bench) his hands pressed to his hair as he lets out a scream. If you look closely in this distance, a DNA helix haunts him, the ghost of strange amplicons and curious PCRs of the past.
Self-portrait with Straw Hat (1887) – Vincent van Gogh
Here we see the Reilly lab leader in this post-impressionist self-portrait. The lab universally decided Steve had to be this painting due to the curious resemblance, though we see Van Gogh’s blue smock has been swapped out for a white lab coat.