Research News

"Daddy fights monsters." 

That’s how Jaehun Lee, PhD’s four‑ and six‑year‑old daughters imagine the cancer research he does in the laboratory of Chao Ma, PhD. When the lab received an invitation to design the journal cover for Lab on a Chip, the girls teamed up with their father and graduate student Mikayla Ybarra to turn their imagination into a work of art.

Weeks earlier, the lab celebrated its first research publication. Dr. Lee led a team, which included Ybarra, in designing a 3D-printed platform to grow and test miniature Ewing sarcoma tumors. The platform identifies drug candidates that show promise in treating the aggressive pediatric cancer. Most journal covers illustrating a paper like that would be sleek, technical and professionally designed. Dr. Ma wanted to get more personal.

“The first step of doing good science is building trust with the community,” Ybarra says. “What’s a better way to do that than working with kids to help give them an active understanding of what’s being done to protect them?”  

Dr. Lee explained his research to his daughters in a language they could understand. He told them a story about good guys, bad guys and a monster that needs outsmarting. The girls picked up their pencils and created their version of what he described. Ewing sarcoma became a scary monster. The 3D culture system became a pit that the monster couldn’t escape. The medicine became soldiers, fighting against the threat.

Dr. Lee took the drawing to Ybarra. She had already bonded with the girls during a lab hot pot night, where they took turns doodling cats and stars on napkins. Ybarra says that it was the start of a genuine collaboration.  

“Working with Jaehun’s daughters was natural, because the same creative energies go into art and research,” Ybarra explains. “Planning experiments engages the same parts of my brain that I use when planning how to make a blank canvas beautiful. On a more literal level, we had to physically design our 3D-printed systems.” 

For over two weeks, Dr. Lee helped Ybarra and his daughters exchange sketches. The girls would critique Ybarra's rendering of their sketch. She kept their imaginations grounded in scientific reality. The girls critiqued her angles and dimensions. They demanded the tumor-monster have a horn because “horns are scary.”

“It was loads of fun collaborating with Jaehun and his daughters in and out of the lab," Ybarra says. "Their drawings turned complex engineering into something human and hopeful. Our paper represents the joy in collaboration between scientists, and the cover image we made represents the joy of connecting with the next generation.” 

As an engineering-based group, the members of the Ma Lab don't interact with patients. They all agree that working directly with Dr. Lee’s children gave them a tangible reminder of pediatric cancer’s real-life consequences. It gives the next steps of their research a greater sense of urgency. 

And for two young artists, the monster with the horn isn’t as scary anymore.

Click through the girls' drafts to follow their journey from start to finish!