Eliza_coli
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eliza-coli.bsky.social
Eliza_coli
@eliza-coli.bsky.social
2.3K followers 1.9K following 350 posts
Microbiologist now #Illustrator; Give #Science clarity, impact & pictures; Portfolio lizawolfson.co.uk ⭐commissions open from JAN 2026⭐ #SciArt #Microbiology #scicomm she/they 🏳️‍🌈

Bristol, England · https://campsite.bio/eliza_coli
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eliza-coli.bsky.social
If I'm not too late, I'd love to throw my hat into the ring, as this is absolutely in my wheelhouse. I'm a microbiologist turned scientific illustrator with publishing experience. See
lizawolfson.co.uk or www.instagram.com/eliza_coli/ for the wide range of what I can do/what I'm up to now
Soft coloured cartoon of a glowing T cell, called Captain Tee, with Ali, a child who has shrunk down to receptor size, riding the T cell. They are floating past a wall of cells that makes up a tissue. The T cell is saying, here come some mabs now! They are surrounded by butterflies shaped like monoclonal antibodies (mAbs). In the wall of cells with faces one looks nervous as it's a cancer cell. Sepia engraving style cartoon of the gut microflora, reimagined as a steampunk dockyark, with cranes, hoists and chimneys belching smoke. The dockyard goes on as far as the eye can see. This is from a Jules Verne style odyssey called Typhoid's journey - we follow the Salmonella typhi submarines as they travel through their host. Front cover of the Microbiology Society's multicoloured microbiomes colouring book. The title is handlettered to contain microbes. There is a window into the oral microbiome structure, partially coloured in Microbiology Society colours. Colouring sheet developed for The Roslin Institute from a comic panel from a comic I wrote that explored the concepts around genetic determinants of host specificity. The comic, called host busters, was made to accompany a game I illustrated of the same name. This image is of immune cells looking for Steph the Staph, who is able to hide from their antibodies on the nasal epithelium, having found a cloak after accidentally jumping from cow to human. Steph is giggling, while the neutrophil and macrophage are saying, where did they go? The B cell is releasing lots of antibodies and saying, don't worry, these antibodies will find it... and when they do, it's toast!
October 21, 2025 at 10:25 AM
eliza-coli.bsky.social
Thanks for the heads up Lizah. This is absolutely in my wheelhouse! If I'm not too late on the uptake, please check out my website lizawolfson.co.uk for my background or Instagram profile (link in bio) for what I'm up to now. Here's a teaser of some of the things I've done.
Sepia illustration of Angelina Hesse, carved out of a stone plinth, with stone microorganisms 'growing' on it, surrounded by microbes on all four corners of the picture. Pencil illustration of 3 streptomyces bacteria glowing yellow green in a rack of grey blue tubes going off into the distant black -shelves are above and below as far as you can see. One streptomyces looks blearily into the distance and says, where am I? The other 2 streptomyces look at the first one - one is smiling broadly, the other looks nervous. Cover for molecular cell in 2012 - headline reads phage anti-sRNA controls bacterial gene expression. The picture is of a dark blue green flagellated rod shaped bacterium in a splashy greenish soup of red and green phages. Cover for cell host and microbe - cartoon image is of a hoard of black and white stripy phage wearing robber masks queuing up to get into the bacterium, which contains integrated phage DNA. It is protected by a big shiny genetic combination lock that glows red.
October 21, 2025 at 9:53 AM
eliza-coli.bsky.social
Lactobacillus, what a #LittleLegend !
Part of our gut and vaginal microbiome, this microbe is one of the most widely used #probiotics to treat diarrhoea and eczema. Thanks to Hiral Raval, a @microbiologysociety.org champion, for suggesting I draw this for #InternationalMicroorganismDay
🐡🧪🧫#scicomm
A black and white cartoon of lactobacillus on a mottled pinky yellow splashy background. The bacillus is peaceful, wearing a headband and decorated with hippie style flowers, stars and peace signs A Microbiology Society branded version of a black and white cartoon of lactobacillus on a mottled pinky yellow splashy background. The bacillus is peaceful, wearing a headband and decorated with hippie style flowers, stars and peace signs. The quote is 'As they are probiotic strains, I love them from the gut of my heart! - Hiral Raval, BioGeneVersity, India.
October 7, 2025 at 10:03 AM
eliza-coli.bsky.social
A fungus that can eat plastic and break down polyurethane - Pestalotiopsis microspora, you're a Little Legend!

Thanks to @microbiologysociety.org champion Bamidele Odumosu for suggesting I draw this for International Microorganism Day.

🧪🐡🦠 #scicomm
A black and white cartoon of fungus Pestalotiopsis microspora eating a plastic bag on an orangey background (that looks a bit like a plastic bag) - the fungus is saying 'Omnomnom' A microbiology society International Microorganism Day branded version of the previous image. The text reads, 'a fungus that can feed on plastic and break down polyurethane. A great environmental sanitation agent. Bamidele Odumosu, University of Lagos, Nigeria.
September 30, 2025 at 10:02 AM
eliza-coli.bsky.social
Bifidobacteria co-evolve with their hosts - new research by the @halllab.bsky.social published in @cp-cellhostmicrobe.bsky.social and illustrated by me!

Another #NotTheCover for the books, but in this case, it's really their loss 😋

🧫🧪🐡 #microbiome #cartoon
Colourful cartoon of a town feast, where all the townies are bifidobacteria, who are coloured to match the kind of (animal) houses they came from. The bacteria sat at a long dining table in the centre are eating lactose together and are using the same cutlery (or enzymes) to do this.. Lanterns light up the twilight as the sun sets. There are reptile houses, bee houses, monkey houses, chicken houses and all sorts of little surprises in the back (the whale and the rabbit buildings are my favourite)
September 29, 2025 at 10:38 AM
eliza-coli.bsky.social
😂 I mean phage look like they are spaceships
Monoprint of green bacteriophage with red triangular debris on a light background
September 22, 2025 at 5:17 PM
eliza-coli.bsky.social
Microbial dark matter! Can't see it, can't grow it, but we know it's there... This is some branding illustration I did for the microbial dark matter symposium this year. Thanks @katrinewhiteson.bsky.social and @zymoresearch.bsky.social for the fun commission!
#microbes #ecoevo
🧪🐡🧫
Monoprint of microbes by @eliza_coli. A crowd of tightly packed bacteria, viruses and fungi, in white, swirl over a dark blue green splashy background. It looks like they are swirling down into the depths of the sea or far away in space.
September 22, 2025 at 9:39 AM
eliza-coli.bsky.social
My son is finally old enough to appreciate my microbial colouring books with me 🤩

Made me realise he was only 1yo when I finished this... So who's going to commission my next microbial colouring book?!
🐡 #microsky 🧪
A photograph showing a 6yo boy and his mother colouring a double page spread from Munchin' Microbes - a colouring book about food safety for undergraduates. The page is an illustration of a fridge with all the shelves and drawers filled with giant kawaii microbes, partially coloured in with felt tips. They are colouring this book on a train journey to pass the time and are talking about how microbes come in all kinds of shapes.
August 11, 2025 at 11:33 AM
eliza-coli.bsky.social
Microbial dark matter in progress...
(Work in progress peeks of a branding commission for an upcoming symposium - yep that's something I do too!)
🐡🧪🧫
Monoprinted pale bacteria and bacteriophage (viruses that infect bacteria) of different shapes on a dark background with green blue bubbles A swathe of monoprinted pale bacteria and bacteriophage (viruses that infect bacteria) of different shapes across a dark blue/turquoise background with green blue bubbles
July 28, 2025 at 7:23 PM
eliza-coli.bsky.social
Does anyone have days where they just can't draw?! Time for some @studioteabreak.bsky.social me thinks!
Picture of Eliza coli in her studio looking very frustrated. Her drawing board behind her is full of disappointing sketches, and the studio wallpaper is torn off. The blind shielding the harsh northern light has lots of leaves painted in it. So that's something...
June 19, 2025 at 9:31 AM
eliza-coli.bsky.social
🪱🪱Hooray for the Super Springing worms! 🪱🪱
Thanks to @bhamlalab.bsky.social for commissioning such a fun comic, jam packed with silliness AND #science. To be adding one of my own comics to the Zoo of Extraordinary Organisms collection is really quite awesome too...
#sciart #microbiology #scicomm
A pink nematode in a yellow cape peeps through a hole in the page and asks us, 'so, how do I fly?'
May 21, 2025 at 3:01 PM
eliza-coli.bsky.social
Some close ups of a recent commission from @walllabuoglasgow.bsky.social about the transport of bacterial metabolites around the body.
🐡🧪 #microsky
coloured illustration of a pink and purple bacterial neighbourhood full of blue/yellow metabolites that ride an escalator up to the circulation line platform coloured illustration of red tube trains riding cream rails around a city transport network that includes a liver factory, a kidney football stadium and a lung building site. The microbes in the cloud like gut sit in the foreground, with a blue partly cloudy sky in the background Red tubes on cream rails connect different organ neighbourhoods - the heart is a high tech factory, the lungs are a building site, the kidney is some sort of sports stadium, sitting on a bouncy bed of intestines. a coloured illustration of a brain on top of some breathing and swallowing tubes. The breathing tubes are stripey and branch into two glasslike domes for lungs. The brain contains skyscrapers and elevated highways
May 9, 2025 at 10:36 AM
eliza-coli.bsky.social
Finally got around to last week's @studioteabreak.bsky.social #PortraitChallenge
(the man pictured was the nobel prize winning scientist Frederick Gowland Hopkins - discovered vitamins were necessary parts of nutrition - and look at all the cool glassware. I kind of had to...)
#sciart
Pencil sketch by Eliza Wolfson of Meredith Frampton's painting of Frederick Gowland Hopkins for studio teabreak portrait challenge. Frederick Gowland Hopkins was a scientist who discovered vitamins and was painted at his bench, with chemistry equipment and lab notes in front of him, looking very thoughtful. He has greying hair, a moustache, and wears a pale blazer, blue shirt and tie with a grey cardigan.
May 8, 2025 at 4:32 PM
eliza-coli.bsky.social
Welcome to mario kart! Or not.

Thanks @studioteabreak.bsky.social for the #ShapeChallenge - it's been far too long!
Crayon sketch of a blue turtle from Mario kart sitting on a toadstool looking glum. It is saying, 'I never did feel welcome'.
April 29, 2025 at 9:17 AM
eliza-coli.bsky.social
How do microbial metabolites influence host physiology? They hop on the circulation line, obvs... (WIP)
#sciart #microsky 🧪
Risograph style picture of yellow chemical structures representative of gut bacterial metabolites marching across a tube station platform onto a red train, where they are silhouetted in the windows. Pink and purple microbes with yellow/orange windows are in the distance. The tube station is called gut central, and it's on the circulation line.
April 17, 2025 at 8:19 AM
eliza-coli.bsky.social
It's not all about bacteria and antibiotics - the global threat of antimicrobial resistance ( #AMR ) involves fungi too...

#PathogenPortraits
🧪🐡 #microsky
Pathogen portrait of Aspergillus. A black and white cartoon of the fungus hyphae with a head of conidiae releasing spores on a pale blue scratchy splashy background with the word Aspergillus written at the bottom.
January 31, 2025 at 10:01 AM
eliza-coli.bsky.social
One wallowing Wolbachia...
#sciart #microsky
Pencil drawing of a large coccoid Wolbachia inside a cytoplasmic vacuole. The Wolbachia has a bored, passive expression on its face. The boundaries of the vacuole are blurry and the cytoplasm is dark with blurred light shapes in the background.
January 28, 2025 at 1:26 PM
eliza-coli.bsky.social
Thanks!
Green vibrio (comma shaped) bacterium with a flagellum, two big eyes and a little smile with 2 little pointy up teeth. The background is dark with blue and green splotches. Generated by pic crew microbe me up
December 17, 2024 at 3:08 PM
eliza-coli.bsky.social
COMPETITION

Dengue fever virus has 5 serotypes that compete for hosts. Primary infection with 1 makes further infection with another much more dangerous. So it’s a real killer competition!

#Microsky #PathogenPortraits #SciComm 🐡🧪
Black and white cartoon portrait of Dengue virus on a highly saturated chaotically striped background of red, blue and green. The virus has two bulging frowning bloodshot eyes, it looks like a ball of tensed muscle and it has 5 huge pointy teeth pointing unnaturally inwards (kind of like a parasitic nematode). It's looking directly at you and trust me, you'd really rather it wasn't!
December 17, 2024 at 10:17 AM
eliza-coli.bsky.social
A sepia charcoal and pencil style portrait of a bust of Angelina Hesse - she is surrounded by growing microorganisms in each of the four corners of the portrait, and her stone plinth has the shapes of microorganisms growing over it.
December 13, 2024 at 11:16 AM
eliza-coli.bsky.social
TRANSPOSON

Also known as jumping genes, they’re a handy tool in a many a pathogen's toolkit. Transposons give Cryptococcus neoformans the genetic room it needs to adapt & resist antibiotics during infection.

#Microsky #PathogenPortraits #SciComm 🧪🐡
Cartoon black and white portrail of a budding cocci of Crytococcus neoformans - it has one eye in each coccus, frowning and bloodshot, with bloodvessels visible, and 2 big pointy teeth jutting up out of it's grumpy mouth. It's encased in a capsule and on top of an orange background with black regular spots, and white irregular spots
December 13, 2024 at 10:54 AM
eliza-coli.bsky.social
ZOONOTIC

Sometimes we're incidental hosts to pathogens. Ebolaviruses mostly infect non-human primates & bats. Our Ebola outbreaks start w. a spillover from these animals, before human to human spread takes over

#Microsky #PathogenPortraits #SciComm 🐡🧪
Black and white cartoon portrait of ebolavirus, long, curling over itself, covered in bumps, looking directly at you with a scowl, with pointy teeth out of a straight mouth. The background is dark grey with small red splashes
December 11, 2024 at 2:45 PM
eliza-coli.bsky.social
ANTIBIOTICS

We REALLY need new antibiotics for Klebsiella pneumoniae. It’s a deadly hospital-acquired opportunist with many modes of antibiotic resistance that it can share easily with other pathogens.

#PathogenPortraits #SciComm 🧪🧫🐡
Black and white cartoon portrait of Klebsiella bacterium on dark background with bright purple, green, turquoise and blue paint textures and spatters. The Klebsiella is covered in a translucent capsule. Inside it's hairy, angry looking, with its mouth open and has two big pointy incisors.
December 5, 2024 at 9:45 AM
eliza-coli.bsky.social
Behold a cardboard Shiga toxin phage!

Work in progress is sometimes better than the final thing...
#sciart #microsky 🧪
A grayscale photo of a flat cardboard model of a Shiga toxin phage
November 28, 2024 at 8:39 PM
eliza-coli.bsky.social
PERSISTENCE

Treponema p. pallidum has been causing syphilis for >5 centuries! This persistent chap can establish lifelong latency, with tertiary symptoms starting up to 45 years after initial infection.

#microsky #PathogenPortraits #SciComm 🧪🐡
Black and white cartoon of Treponema p. pallidum - a fusilli curly shaped bacterium, depicted with eyelashes and fangs - on a light pink mottled and splashy background.
November 27, 2024 at 11:55 AM