Art Versus Science: Napoleon's Defeat is Insulin's Victory

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A team of Sydney researchers have used a 19th Century map commissioned by Napoleon to chart his defeat in Russia as inspiration to show the pathway insulin takes in the human body as glucose enters via food, triggers insulin secretion which then travels to muscle, fat or liver tissue.
Dubbed Minardo, after Napoleon’s civil engineer Charles Minard the diagram charts in unprecedented detail the insulin/IGF1 signalling pathway (ISP), a complex network of molecular interactions triggered by insulin which plays an essential role in long-term health, obesity and diseases such as diabetes.
"The science is about how insulin works," said Professor David James, Leonard P Ullmann Chair of Metabolic Systems Biology at the University of Sydney's Charles Perkins Centre.
"The great complexity begins when the insulin binds to the tissue, which initiates a very convoluted series of many thousands of molecular events.
"These events don't just happen all at once - they can come on very quickly or very slowly, some go up and some go down, some happen in the nucleus, some happen in other parts of the cell.
"For the first time, our team has been able to display all of the main events in a simple image, making it easier for researchers to understand it.
"It's really a visual gateway to a whole spectrum of biology. It's a work of art," Professor James said.
The map draws on landmark research by Professor James and was created by data visualisation specialist Dr Séan O'Donoghue, Office of the Chief Executive Science Leader at CSIRO and Senior Faculty Member at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research. The interdisciplinary team also included molecular biologists, bioinformaticians, data visualisation experts and a graphic designer.
It is hoped Minardo will help explain ISP to students and scientists in other areas, improving understanding of the vitally important but poorly understood process.
"We also think Minardo will be very useful for other scientists working in other areas such as cancer, who may be able to use the same concept for their branch of science," Professor James said.