What’s art got to do with it? New Perspectives on Visualizing the Microbiome
The human body is made up of not only your cells but a vast collection of bacterial cells that outnumber yours by as much as ten to one. This collection of bacteria is collectively called the microbiota; their genes are the microbiome. Studies of the microbiome can involve thousands of samples, each with hundreds of pieces of information attached to them. Interpreting and recognizing patterns in the data is becoming increasingly difficult, as current visualization methodologies do not scale readily to this size. Exploratory analysis of such complex datasets constitutes a paradigm shift in the way scientists must interact and collaborate.
As such, the Knight Lab and the Qualcomm Institute at University of California, San Diego, are piloting a special studies seminar, bringing together an interdisciplinary team of biology, computer science, and soon visual arts students to experiment with new approaches to visualizing these data. Over one quarter, the students are given a grounding in the biology and computer science related to microbiome research and the design grounding in existing methodologies for visualizing large data sets. Students are then tasked with creating or updating visualization methods to better display data. By combining diverse fields of knowledge, students will explore creating visualizations that are not only rewarding aesthetically but also functional and more intuitive. We expect that by exposing scientists to visualization platforms and collaborating directly with technologists and artists, we will expand the range of interdisciplinary expression and creativity. Such output is likely to reach a broader audience than in any single domain of expertise.
Jr. Specialist
UCSD
Joshua Shorenstein is a junior specialist working on microbiome software development and analysis under Dr. Rob Knight. Joshua earned a BS in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology from University of California, Santa Cruz, and an MS in Biochemistry from University of Colorado, Boulder. His work focuses on large data storage, manipulation, and visualization in a human interpretable format. He is a lead developer on QIITA, a microbiome data storage and analysis platform, and the American Gut Project website.
