Meet the winner of the reNEW ARTxSCIENCE competition!
Congratulations to PhD fellow Antar Drews from the Żylicz lab, at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Stem Cell Medicine, reNEW Copenhagen for winning first prize in the first reNEW ARTxSCIENCE Competition. The winning entry was up against 61 competitors and was unanimously selected by an esteemed international jury and announced on Stem Cell Awareness Day, October 11th.
Members of the jury agreed that “the submission captures the intersection between art and science and is a perfect fusion of an extremely beautiful image and an impactful and clearly communicated story that people can understand and relate to. The winner has great potential to raise awareness about stem cells and how stem cell research can help transform lives.”
The international jury consisted of Professor Insoo Hyun, Museum of Science Boston in the US; Christel Schollaardt, Science Manager at Museum Boerhaave, Leiden in the Netherlands; Professor Birgitte Holst, Novo Nordisk Foundation in Denmark; and Bern Hall, Assisting Curator from the Science Gallery in Melbourne, Australia.
”I am very happy for winning the first prize, which I did not expect as there were many beautiful and good submissions. Raising awareness of the potential of stem cells and stem cell research is very important, which I believe that the reNEW ARTxSCIENCE Competition is good at", said Antar Drews when receiving the winning trophy.
“The reNEW ARTxSCIENCE competition has been a huge success, which we plan to hold on an annual basis”, says CEO and Professor Melissa H. Little, Novo Nordisk Foundation of Stem Cell Medicine, reNEW.
The winning image is titled: Life in the Making: Decoding Infertility with Blastoids. In the supporting text, the winner, Antar Drews, explains how roughly 1 in 6 people globally are affected by infertility, with most unsuccessful pregnancies failing within the first week after conception. The goal of the research is to model the initial stages of human development using stem cells to uncover what can go wrong during this critical phase and better understand the underlying causes of early pregnancy loss.
The reNEW ARTxSCIENCE competition is a celebration of Stem Cell Awareness Day 2023 on October 11th and aims to raise awareness about the potential of stem cell medicine to transform the lives of people by capturing the intersection between art and science.
The competition attracted an impressive 62 entries from the three reNEW Nodes in Copenhagen, Leiden, and Melbourne.
Participants were asked to select a stem cell image for their research, accompanied by a well written and easy to understand story that explains their research to the public. The entries were posted on social media to reach the public, who were then asked to vote for the entry they felt best conveyed the story behind the image. The top 12 finalists were presented to the international jury, which selected the overall winner.
The winning entry will be displayed on a 55-meter-high and 33-meter-wide projection on the Tower of Panum at the University of Copenhagen from October 11-13th. The first prize also includes a cheque of 5000 euro and will feature on the front cover of the reNEW annual report.
See all the beautiful submissions and read about the incredible power of stem cells and their potential to transform the lives of people https://renew.science/artxscience/