My name is Dr Kathryn Garner. I’m a Scientist, Artist and Writer.

Science found me after I’d finished my degree in Fine Art. My collection of Cell Paintings left me wondering what those brightly-coloured histology images were.

I had always been in awe of the delicacy and intricacy of biology, so when I left art school I took a job on an insect farm. Here I experienced the joy of working alongside crickets, locusts, mealworms and all manner of reptiles. I took extra science A-levels in evening classes, and before long I was studying for my undergraduate degree in Molecular Cell Biology at UCL.

There is a Philosopher of Science whose name I’ll write here when I remember it, who famously said, “Can I spray it?” when deciding whether or not something was real. So many scientific concepts are unable to be seen with our eyes and instead must be accepted on faith. For me, I asked, “Can I make it?” The way that my artist’s brain wants to understand the world is to draw it. This helped me to understand complicated concepts as I was studying and later ask questions in my own scientific research - if I was going to draw or make the system myself, what information was I missing?

Perhaps not surprisingly, I’m drawn to the world of Synthetic Biology, how it seeks to modularise biology into a parts box that can be assembled in different ways. This resonates with my Illustrations and Paintings, which use metaphor and allegory to bring together seemingly disparate elements into a greater whole.

I’ve worked in and around medical science for many years; I currently work for a biotech company building wet-lab models that are used by pharmaceutical clients to test their new drug candidates. So this blog is going to be about how naturally-occurring molecules can be re-purposed to create new biology, particularly in the discovery of new medicines. I’ll do all this with the eyes of an artist - look into the nuts and bolts of making using biology, as well as examining the ethics of whether we should be tinkering with biology, and what this says about us as humans.

All that will keep me - and you, dear reader - busy for a while. Until then, here is a picture of me in one of my happy places: in my pond with the beetles and bugs.

One day I’ll be able to swim in it.