Why we do it: In the McMahon laboratory within the Neurobiology Division of the MRC’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology, we want to communicate our science to young artists with a strong interest in science. We decided to invite a young artist to come into the lab over the summer holiday, to explore what we do and to aid us in communicating to a wider audience through art. In order to find the right person, we hold a competition in which Sixth Form artists are asked to depict some aspect of how the brain works. The precise subject varies from year to year.

Local Sixth Form colleges are asked to encourage any suitable pupils to apply. In the first year, Ted Coney, art lecturer at Hills Road Sixth Form College, really took the idea on board and proposed to interested students that they could make their entry part of the course requirements for their AS level in art. This resulted in seven spectacular entries from Hills Road students that left the judges with the almost impossible task of choosing a winner.