As part of School of Biological Sciences (SBS) at NTU’s 20th anniversary celebration, we held a Photo Contest open to all students and staff, calling for photos that represent “Our SBS” to them. The photos we received spoke a thousand words, but there were 3 that the committee and online voters loved the most.
Let us meet the top 3 winners of this contest.
1st: Red light, green light
By Audrey Lim
Prize Presentation of vouchers to Audrey Lim
Caption provided in contest entry:
Left: Transgenic Arabidopsis seeds expressing DsRed fluorescent protein from a red mushroom coral. This exogenous protein fluoresces red light following green light excitation. It serves as a selection marker for generating transgenic plants.
Right: 5 day old Arabidopsis seedlings grown on nutrient medium.
Inspiration behind photo, title & caption:
I wanted to showcase the type of plant experiment work that our lab does. I figure that it will make it a very interesting photo to share with the school. The caption is meant as a visual pun to the “Red Light, Green Light” game from Squid Game, a popular survival series. I hope that a quirky caption contextualising experimental work with pop culture will make the photo all the more interesting.
Things that you are thankful for at SBS:
I am grateful for the enriching and nurturing environment that SBS has provided me to not only develop discipline-relevant skills but also form life-long relationships. This would not have been possible without the amazing teaching faculty, support staff and students of SBS.
Message for SBS’s 20th anniversary:
May SBS continue to excel and take students to new heights! Looking forward to celebrating more milestones with SBS!
2nd: Lava Lamp of SBS
By Bronson Lee
Prize Presentation of vouchers to Bronson Lee
Caption provided in contest entry:
To me, SBS is a place where we can meet new friends and do many new exciting things. Just like this lava lamp made during the College of Science Community Project, every one of us is a uniquely different blob. Yet through our university journey, it shakes us up as we form bigger blobs with new people and over time, break off to form new bigger blobs as we constantly interact with different groups of people through our electives, CCAs, and campus life. Sometimes, we may feel like just an insignificant red or blue blob individually, but I am thankful for the friends I made along the way to produce a collective pretty, purple lava lamp, and ten, twenty, thirty years later, that is what my SBS experience will mean to me.
Inspiration behind photo, title & caption:
The photo was taken during one of the activities of the College of Science Community Project, where we were introducing science concepts to primary school children during the holidays together with our peers from the School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences and the Asian School of the Environment. The project was where I got to meet new people across the College of Science and within SBS, so I felt it was representative of my undergraduate experience in SBS.
The inspiration for the caption came to me as I was browsing my photo gallery looking for a good photo to submit, when I saw the lava lamp we made, which works by forming and reforming blobs, and that instantly reminded me of my SBS experience as I got to catch up with old acquaintances I lost touch with from before university, as well as meeting loads of new people.
Things that you are thankful for at SBS:
I am thankful for the many friends that shaped my SBS journey into such an enjoyable one. From seniors who guided the blur, freshman me, to the buddies along the way discussing Past Year Paper questions together and the zany laboratory adventures we had, to the gaming pals for a brief respite from studying for a nice, relaxing game of Cuphead.
Message for SBS’s 20th anniversary:
Happy 20th anniversary SBS! I hope everyone will have as enjoyable a time in SBS as me, and I cannot wait to see what new activities and programmes the school would have embarked on by the 30th, 40th anniversary and beyond!
3rd: The General
By Olivia Agatha
Prize Presentation of vouchers to Olivia Agatha
Caption provided in contest entry:
On a general morning in the underground, the general of the general store is managing the conveyance from the outside world, in order to maintain the general convenience of each laboratory in the School of Biological Sciences. This photo is taken as a tribute to the hardworking personnel behind each of our lab’s consumables. Thank you for your hard work!!! Special thanks to Chong Jin of SBS General Store and Razali, the delivery guy.
Inspiration behind photo, title & caption:
As a staff working closely with procurement, I have come to know the people working in general store more than just for procurement. Even though I spend most of time working in the lab, I am also in charge of buying and collecting items necessary for the lab; hence, on the many trips down to the general store, I have conversed with the people on topics related to and unrelated to procurement. And I feel the underground, being a hidden place, is an area that may not be appreciated by lots. As I feel that they are very important to ensure the smoothness of the experiments in the lab, I wanted to show everyone a moment of a general day in the general store – one of the few moments that keep the labs running.
Things that you are thankful for at SBS:
I was an undergraduate and continued to work as a project officer in one of the labs in SBS. Throughout my journey, I have become acquainted with many great people with great ideas and have had many opportunities to join interesting seminars, be those related to my research, or those of new ongoing research in another field, or even seminars by professionals working in the non-research aspect of biological sciences.
Message for SBS’s 20th anniversary:
Happy 20th anniversary! May we shine brighter!
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To view the five other winning consolation entries of this Photo Contest, visit our 20th anniversary page here.