Saturday 11 January 2014

Langerhans Cells Inspired Nail Art: Nail Art Ideas Link Up January Challenge: Health and Wellness

I have always wanted to participate in a nail art challenge but they have always seem so impossible to me with 2-3 different designs per week!! Jacqui at Crafty nail recently let me know about the "Nail Art Ideas Linkup" that she organises each month with Brijit from Brijit’s Digits and Jemma from Eeeek! Nail Polish!  . These challenges are very chilled with just four designs per month, and no pressure to complete them all- Perfect!!! They are also very creative ideas, a bit different from the common themes you see in nail art challenges such as blue, dots, marble, etc :)


This month the first theme is health and wellness. Being a PhD student involved in medical research I immediately wanted to try some histology inspired nails. In my honours year I was lucky enough to do a lot of fluorescent immunohistochemistry which I imaged on a confocal microscope which is able to image very thin slices of an image and even build 3D images of whatever specimen your working with! The cells I studied were Langerhans cells which are dendritic cells which reside in the epidermis of the skin and have long arms that search for antigens and are the first step in triggering an adaptive immune response. Anyway...enough of that- all you need to know is that they are very beautiful! Here is some close up images (A=unactivated, B= activated). Sorry about the grainy image- its straight from my thesis!! The red and yellow cells are the Langerhans cells and the blue cells are the nuceli of the keratinocytes or skin cells :)


 And here is a less zoomed image- aren't they pretty??? (Yup I'm pretty proud of these pictures haha)






















Ok and now for my attempt to recreate them on my nails :)



 I painted my nails first with OPI Black Onyx, and then with a polish I made to look like the blue 'hoescht' stained keratinocytes which has blue circular glitters and some holographic small glitters just for fun ;)

I then used white acrylic paint to paint the cells so they would stand out over the black. I made sure the cells arms weaved between the keratinocytes. I used China Glaze Sun-Kissed and China Glaze Shell-o to colour the cells.



I think I managed some likeness to the real thing but the arms needed to be finer. What do you think? Thanks for stopping by, and if you are interested in the nail art ideas link up (NAIL) follow this link.

17 comments:

  1. These are spectacular! Such a great take on the prompt, pretty and science-y all at the same time!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow, beautiful and vivid! I love the colour choice for lots of your manis. Genius!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Yuri <3 I always thought that those microscopic images were beautiful with the vivid fluorescent colours :) Lucky it translated well into nail art hehe :)

      Delete
  3. Fluorescent immunohistochemistry nails?? These are amazing!! I'm so glad you entered your linkz!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for coming up with such creative themes!

      Delete
  4. Wow, these are gorgeous! A great idea, and they're sooo well done. :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. This is absolutely awesome and such a brilliant idea :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. I think you did an amazing job with both the original photos and recreation on your nails. So beautiful and original!

    ReplyDelete
  7. These are just great! I love nerdy science nails that are beautiful to boot.

    ReplyDelete
  8. These look great -- they're a great representation of the real cells! Very original :)

    ReplyDelete
  9. Cant wait to show my Daughter , She will love it. Http://dougorrblogbeast.com

    ReplyDelete
  10. These are seriously beautiful! I work in a neurobiology lab and these are just perfect!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Wonderful! here You can find more biological images for inspiration http://biopictures.blogspot.com/ have a nice day!

    ReplyDelete
  12. From someone whom is suffering from LCH THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for your comments! I read every single one from both new and old posts, and will do my best to respond to any questions you may have in a timely fashion :)