Ayse U Akarca

Ayse U Akarca is a Turkish scientist and painter, now based in London where she balances making art with her career in research at one of the world’s leading laboratories at UCL.

Over recent years, Ayse has been working on numerous research projects on cancer, and her amazing discoveries led to h...

Ayse U Akarca is a Turkish scientist and painter, now based in London where she balances making art with her career in research at one of the world’s leading laboratories at UCL.

Over recent years, Ayse has been working on numerous research projects on cancer, and her amazing discoveries led to her first scientific publication titled ‘’BRAF V600E mutation‐specific antibody, a sensitive diagnostic marker revealing minimal residual disease in hairy cell leukaemia’’, which was the inspiration for the creation of her earliest painting called ‘’Hairy Look’’. Although this painting is visually simple and does not over stimulate with colour complexity, it carries an underlying message about the rarity, mortality and morbidity of this disease. This painting additionally highlights the immunohistochemistry technique used in the laboratories as an effective identification tool for early onset of disease, which is vital for successful and effective treatment of leukaemia.

As Ayse has progressed with her scientific discoveries, she has become a pioneer in one particular immunohistochemistry technique, and as such her research and collaborations with other European research groups has grown even wider. With the evolution of Ayse’s scientific work came a range of emotions, thoughts and messages that she has continued to capture in her art.

Working with different cancer tissues, faced with the reality of what this disease is and the effect it has on people’s lives, Ayse is constantly made to think about mortality – and the fine line that exists between life and death. Her paintings are inspired by actual patient tumour samples and also tell the story of her own emotions while working with these samples in the laboratory. By using different painting techniques and unconventional tools, she channels these sentiments onto the canvas, with the hope that it sparks an emotion and curiosity in the mind of the viewer.

Ayse’s main aim with her painting is to push the boundaries and fuse the worlds of science and art, in order to bring life to the reality of disease and pain. Engaged in the communities of both art and science, she believes strongly that working in a cross-disciplinary environment can open up and broaden perspectives, encouraging audiences in both fields