The flux under your skin
Special exhibition, 1 September to 29 November 2023
It gets under your skin!
Researchers are investigating whether bacteria can be used as drug carriers and targeted in the bloodstream with the help of a magnetic field. Could we use bacteria in this way to fight cancer cells?
The exhibition ‘The flux under your skin’ by the artist Prof Susanne Winterling in collaboration with the Responsive Biomedical Systems Lab, ETH Zurich, took an artistic approach to this question. In an environment of 37 degrees, our body temperature, visitors felt the heat – energy – that nurtures us and all life inside us, while they walked through a visual installation of dense cancer tissue. The energy enables the growth of cells and bacteria in our body and their exchange with each other. This exchange can be influenced by magnetic fields, which visitors can experience in an interactive simulation.
The immersive spatial installation shown in focusTerra invited us to let technology, research and imagination merge and to follow the magnetic flux of the bacteria.
Public talks to the exhibition:
- Tuesday, 31 October 2023, 17:30 – 18:30 in NO D 45
'Magnetische Helfer: Wie Bakterien bei der Krebsbekämpfung unterstützen'
Stefano Menghini & Pascal Poc, PhD students in the Responsive Biomedical Systems Lab, ETH Zurich - Monday, 13 November 2023, 17:30 – 18:30 in NO D 45
'Controlling your intestinal jungle?'
Prof. Dr. Emma Wetter Slack, Mucosal Immunology, ETH Zurich - Thursday, 16 November 2023, 17:30 – 18:30 in NO D 45
'The microbiome as driver of cancer metastasis and therapeutic target'
Prof. Dr. med. Michael Scharl, Senior Physician, Clinic for Gastroenterology and Hepatology, USZ - Monday, 27 November 2023, 17:30 – 18:30 in NO D 45
"The autobiography of a gut bacterium"
Dr. Florian Schmidt, Laboratory for Biological Engineering, ETH Zurich