Esophagus Muscularis

Layered muscle tissue of the esophagus, rendered in pen-plotted line work.

The Data

Biology builds itself in layers. A single cell divides and specializes, joining others to form tissue with a collective purpose. In the esophageal muscularis, cells have organized into layered muscle tissue, coordinating contractions that move food through the body without a moment's conscious thought.

Part of a three-piece series tracing the progression from cell to tissue to organ. Biology at scale is a continuum of interactions that boggle the mind — and it all begins with a single cell following its genetic instructions.

Source: GTEx — Genotype-Tissue Expression Project, specimen GTEX-117XS-1426 — https://brd.nci.nih.gov/brd/specimen/GTEX-117XS-1426.
Attribution: The Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) Project, supported by the NIH Common Fund and NCI, NHGRI, NHLBI, NIDA, NIMH, and NINDS. Data available via the GTEx Portal and NCI Biospecimen Research Database.

The Technique

Giclée fine art print, printed on demand and fulfilled by Prodigi (Fine Art Trade Guild approved). Small numbered edition. Each print ships with a signed data-provenance insert card.

What You Receive

• One numbered giclée print (unframed, shipped in a protective tube)
• Signed data-provenance insert card
• Care instructions

About Genetics of Design

Genetics of Design is a small studio turning scientific and geographic data into quietly-composed visual work. Each piece begins with a real dataset — road networks, genomes, star catalogs, species records — and ends with a printed or pen-plotted artifact you can hang on a wall. Every edition is small, numbered, and accompanied by the provenance of the data it came from.