Professional Category Winners

Microbes grown on agar by participants who have access to, and created their work in, a formal laboratory setting, such as a university or industrial lab.

Creator Category Winners

Microbes grown on agar by participants who created their work in an informal setting, something like a community lab or maker space.

Open Category Winners

Entries that used any type of Media (video, poem, painting, sculpture, etc.)

Kids Category Winners

Entries from our junior microbiologists, age 12 and under.

Professional Category Winners

The Professional Category is for microbes grown on Agar by participants who have access to, and created their work in, a formal laboratory setting such as a university or industrial lab.

First Place: "Alien Medley"

One of the tantalizing questions of outer space is, “What would aliens look like?” They could be single-celled. They could be multi-cellular! There is no shortage of speculation in books and films, with only our imagination as the limit. The aliens depicted here are inspired by the “Yip Yip” aliens of Sesame Street and the little green men from the vending machine in the movie Toy Story. The bacteria used is Klebsiella pneumonia, a relative of E. coli that secretes a slimy capsule. Both capsulated and non-capsulated variants of K. pneumoniae were used to draw the aliens. The eyes are disks used for antibiotic susceptibility testing (with permanent marker pupils), and the colors of the agar are different indicator dyes from around the lab. Most of the dyes change color depending on the pH, but 1 of dyes (Resazurin) changes color in the presence of oxygen. If we were to meet aliens (and their microbiota), I hope they are as friendly and expressive as the ones drawn here.

Artist: Ella Rotman (University of Chicago)

Second Place: "Agarnaut"

This astronaut "Agarnaut" is looking through his microscope, looking for rare microorganisms that he can bring back home. On the small petri dishes are the constellations (from bottom to top) the Big Dipper, Cassiopeia, Orion and Scorpio. The bacteria that were used are genetically engineered E. coli K12. The DNA to engineer it to be colorful is derived from sea anemones. The cultures also fluoresce when illuminated with ultraviolet light.

Artist: Svenja Ries (BRAIN Biotech AG)

Third Place: "Microbial Perseverance"

Mars 2020 is an ongoing NASA mission that explores the red planet for signs of past microbial life and also conducts tests in preparation for future crewed missions. To this end, the Perseverance rover—along with the Ingenuity drone—was sent to perform tasks, such as collecting soil samples and testing oxygen production from the Martian atmosphere. Our work portrays Perseverance, Ingenuity and the mission name, using 2 different bacteria isolated from the Atacama Desert (Chile), the most Mars-like place on Earth. The plates were made by exposing freshly inoculated bacterial lawns to germicidal UV light through stencils, in order to restrict the microbial proliferation to covered areas only. However, even though they were exposed for about 10X the time needed to kill Escherichia coli, some colonies still grew in the uncovered areas, evidencing how UV-resistant desert bacteria can be. Each plate image was cut out from an individual photograph to form this 3-image montage. The stencils are based on images by NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Artists: Amelia Cox-Fermandois, A. Victoria Suárez-Clerc, Hazajem Colque-Ferrer, Camilo Berríos-Pastén and Andrés E. Marcoleta

Creator Category Winners

The Creator Category is for microbes grown on Agar by participants who created their work in the classroom or in an informal setting like a community lab or maker space.

'A Cosmic Journey of Yeast Cells'

Imagine yeast, those remarkable microorganisms that bring life to our bread, beer and wine. Now, envision them embarking on a unique adventure beyond the confines of our planet. This is the captivating story that my Agar Art piece portrays—the incredible journey of yeast cells in the cosmos. In the vast expanse of space, scientists launched a small satellite called BioSentinel to explore how yeast cells respond to the rigors of space radiation and its effects on DNA repair mechanisms. My artwork depicts this extraordinary voyage. At its core, you'll find BioSentinel, a CubeSat adorned with solar panels, carrying the yeast cells into the great unknown. The spacecraft is surrounded by beautiful stars radiating different colours, symbolizing the vastness and beauty of space. To the left, I’ve also tried to depict the Moon to mimic deep space where this yeast carrying satellite will travel and unearth the potential of a living form to withstand space radiations.

This art piece not only celebrates the inquisitiveness of scientists who thought out of the box and sent yeast into the cosmos, but also prompts us to contemplate that, in the vastness of space, all life forms, no matter how small, have their place and can journey into the stars. It's a reminder of the boundless marvels of science and the incredible adventures that even the simplest life forms can embark upon.

Artist: Shashank Yadav (Amity University Mumbai, India)

Second Place: "Spaceship Flying Through the Stars"

Spaceship flying through the stars. The medium used was tryptone soy agar and it was incubated at 21°C. The spaceship was made using Staphylococcus aureus, and the flame was made using Serratia marcescens. The stars were made using Pseudomonas auroginosa. The plate is shown illuminated with UV light.

Artist: Rachel Moore (Angelina College)

Third Place: "The Birth of a Star"

Somewhere in the universe, a new star has been born. We may learn about it tomorrow, or it could be a million years from now. The paths of stars and our lives intersect. Just contemplating it fills the heart with wonder. I expressed the blessing of the birth of a new star and its surging energy in blue produced by Candida tropicalis.

Artist: Hina Uchikawa (Fukushima Medical University)

Open Category Winners

The Open Category includes entries that used any type of media to highlight this year's theme.

'Irradiating Microbes'

This piece, titled "Irradiating Microbes," encapsulates some of the effects of extreme environmental factors in space, such as solar UV radiation, vacuum and varying temperatures. These bacteria affected by radiation can also illuminate our world. The idea for this piece was inspired by my love for vibrancy and waves—simple, dynamic lines just like the ocean's calm waves. It was created on a 16" x 20" cotton stretch canvas using acrylic paint, markers and gold leaf. The use of cold colors in the background represents the low temperatures and various wavelengths of radiation affecting these bacteria, not just the vivid colors of outer space. The rest of the piece focuses on the ethereal presence of these organisms. Studies conducted by NASA, the University of Southern California, Cornell University and the University of Hyderabad have reported that certain bacteria, such as Deinococcus, E. coli, Salmonella Typhimurium and the recently discovered bacteria, Methylobacterium ajmalii, that have been presented in the painting, show increased growth (about twice the growth) in space as compared to their growth on Earth. It has also been reported that the inner cells in clusters of Deinococcus can survive, although they suffer irreparable DNA damage, as represented in the piece by the unusual DNA code. Research also suggests that the impact of bacterial cell behavior in gravity could be exploited for the production of pharmaceutical compounds and vaccines, making them little 'golden' organisms of our future.

Artist: Sunskritha Shivaprasad (Vidya Niketan School)

Second Place: Space Traveling Microbes, Architects of Life

Microbes in space might sound surprising, but they play a big part in the story of life on Earth. Billions of years ago, these tiny adventurers hitched rides on space rocks, landing here and becoming the pioneers of life. Settling in oceans and soil, these microbes started the incredible journey of life, evolving and shaping the diverse forms we see today. They are like the original architects of life, turning a young, barren planet into a thriving home for countless organisms. So, when we think about the origins of life on Earth, we owe a big thank you to these space-traveling microbes! To create this piece of agar art, first, we filled a 6 cm Petri dish with Simmons citrate culture medium and placed it in the center of a 15 cm Petri dish. Then, we filled the larger Petri dish with Eosin methylene blue culture medium. We used Klebsiella pneumonia for the Earth and Escherichia coli for DNA. K. pneumonia uses citrate and turns the green color of Simmons citrate into blue. E. coli colonies grow with a metallic sheen with a dark center on EMB.

Artists: Sima Taheri, Morteza Khomeiri, Mitsu Suyemoto and Caiti Smukowski Heil (Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources and North Carolina State University).

Third Place: Space Colonization

This digital collage was inspired by the amazing ability of microorganisms to adapt to extreme conditions (extremely cold or hot, acidic or basic, salty or high-pressure environments) that would be lethal for more complex organisms. Although life in space (without protection from radiation, extreme temperatures and even the vacuum itself) seems unlikely, it has been found that some microorganisms can survive in these hostile conditions, acting collectively. Each Petri dish represents a microscopic universe, displaying diversity and beauty in the smallest life forms, just as the solar system displays majesty and wonder in the immensity of the cosmos.

Artist: Agustina Costa (Buenos Aires University)

Kids Category Winners

First Place: The Rocket Bear

My piece represents a tardigrade outside of a rocket ship. One thing I find interesting about this topic is that tardigrades can live in any environment. The bacteria that I used to create my art is Sarcina aurantiaca. The thing I used to apply the bacteria to the agar was a little circle. It took 1 day for the agar to start growing.

Artist: Ambria Adair (Knudson Academy of the Arts)

Second Place (Tie): One Small Step for Tardigrades!

My piece shows happy tardigrades landing on the moon. I find the topic of tardigrades on the moon very interesting. It makes me wonder if there are tardigrades living on other planets, like Mars or Saturn. For my agar art, I used a bacteria called the Sarcina aurantiaca. I used a plastic tool with a little ring shape on the bottom. I took the tool, and I dipped it into the tube filled with bacteria. I left it on the plate for a day, and in the morning the bacteria grew perfectly on the plate.

Artist: Molly Stutz (Knudson Academy of the Arts)

Second Place (Tie): Playing in the Space

This picture is about a cat with her children playing in the space. But they saw an UFO. The 2 little cats are very happy because they saw the UFO, so their mom take a photo that UFO in the beautiful space.

Artists: Man Wai Chan, Lam Kai Chit, Cheung Yan Ching and Guan Xin Yan (Ho Shun Primary School, Hong Kong)

Miscellaneous Contest Entries

We also had 23 miscellaneous entries in 2023. See them on our Flickr page.