INTERNATIONAL
Designer drugs:
audience engagement through a high-content sci-vis workshop
Photo credit: Rosanne Roobeek.
By Jeroen Claus & Emily Burns
Guest Contributors
In the communication of contemporary bio-
medical science to a general audience, as scientists we are challenged to negotiate intricate
concepts without using overelaborate jargon,
while simultaneously steering clear of patronizing oversimplification. In the field of cancer
biology, advances in understanding the basic
underlying mechanisms of disease and how we
can take advantage of them therapeutically
have spiraled into ever more intricate detail.
As scientists, we sometimes forget that public
understanding of science has tended to also
spiral directly behind it, forming a double helix,
if you will. In an age where a wealth of digital
information is directly available in a variety of
formats more easily digestible than primary
academic literature (be it through Wikipedia or
the various excellent blogs run by, among others, charities and scientific organizations), we
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need to continually reassess whether the tone of
our scientific communication is still hitting that
sweet spot of being not too specialized, but not
too simplified, either.
As two postgraduate students, currently
completing biochemistry and structural biology
research theses with Cancer Research UK, we
were involved in designing a workshop recently
at the Science Museum in London. Monthly,
the Science Museum organizes late night openings for adults only, themed around a particular
area of scientific interest. An integral part of
these Science Museum “Lates” is to get scientists to directly engage with the public about
their research, through lectures, open debates,
workshops and, to lubricate the entire process,
the odd alcoholic beverage.
SciArt in America April 2014