Have you ever seen art created in a petri dish using living, growing microorganisms? That's agar art! Creators use either naturally colorful microbes, like the red bacteria Serratia marcescens, or genetically modified microbes, like the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae transformed with violacein genes, as 'paint' and various types, shapes and sizes of agar as a 'canvas.' In fact, the original agar artist was none other than Alexander Fleming himself!

Read More About Agar Art

• Top 5 Agar Art Tips.

• Inspiring High School Students' Creativity and Design Thinking with Agar Art.

• Creating Art and Education with Microbes.

• A Petri Dish is Worth 1000 Words: The Lasting Impact of ASM’s Agar Art Contest.

How to Create Agar Art: Video Tutorial

Agar Art Media Coverage

In 2015, ASM launched the ASM Agar Art Contest to share the beautiful and diverse world of microbes with the public. Submissions from past years of the contest have been featured worldwide: 

• As part of "Agar Art on Display," a public event at ASM Microbe 2022 covered by National Public Radio's "Shortwave" podcast.
• 200+ media outlets, including this piece in National Geographic.
• The "Microbes Rule!" exhibit at the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, NJ.
• At the AMR Challenge celebration in New York during the 2019 United Nations General Assembly.

Questions? Contact communications@asmusa.org.