Sobhan Katebifar, a second-year PhD student in Biomedical Engineering, recently won second place in the Science as Art competition during the 2023 Materials Research Society (MRS) fall meeting in Boston.

Katebifar’s image, titled “Flames,” is an artistic rendering of an image he took of a mouse’s incisor teeth. Katebifar was inspired by world events when creating the art.

“It is inspired from the current situation in the world, ” said Katebifar. “My work has the message of a wish and hope for having a world without any war, fire and flames.”

Katebifar won second place in the competition.

Katebifar, a research assistant in assistant professor of Biomedical Engineering Dr. Alix Deymier’s lab, is examining the dentin-enamel junction (DEJ), or interface between enamel and dentin, of mouse teeth for his research on the genetic disorder Dentinogenesis imperfecta (DGI). The disorder affects 1/7,000 people worldwide.

In the image, Katebifar was using the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) technique to characterize tooth samples and identify the underlying factors that cause tooth failure. The image shows the enamel, which is the outer and hardest part of the tooth, and the enamel rods that interlock to provide structure to the enamel and prevent cracking. The arrangement of the enamel rods is crucial for the enamel’s hardness.

“Flames” was selected as one of 50 finalists. Along with winning second place, Katebifar presented his work at the meeting.

This was the first time that Katebifar made an artistic rendering of a research photo. He hopes to continue making research art in the future.