Vesicular Transport Illustration and Animation

After learning about an extensively studied method of vesicular transport in her Cell Biology class, Caitlyn Riley ’26 (medical illustration) observed visual improvements were needed to support education of the subject. 

The following semester, she took action in the RIT medical illustration program’s Contemporary Media I course. She created a poster artistically portraying clathrin mediated endocytosis — a process by which cells absorb metabolites, hormones, and proteins. 

Her focus on the topic of how cells receive nutrients also extended to her Medical and Scientific Animation course. For an assignment, Riley produced a related animation, depicting how cells take in microbes and nutrients via endocytosis using specialized proteins (below).

“A lot of cell biology textbooks have very basic and schematic illustrations to simplify the complex biological processes they are describing,” she said, “and I’ve always wanted to redesign them in a way that takes them to a new level.”