Photographs by Ted Hinchcliffe, assistant professor of Biological Sciences, grace the covers of three scientific journals this year with vivid shapes and colors that show the process of cell division and the effects of an anti-cancer drug that prevents cancerous cells from multiplying. The pictures are the seventh, eighth and ninth journal covers that Hinchcliffe, who has a small digital darkroom at home and $750,000 of imaging equipment in the basement of Galvin Hall, has produced in his career.

The cover of the May 2008 volume of the Journal of Cell Biology shows the beginning of the division of a cell and a later stage with the “bellybutton” that assures the cell divides into two. Failure to divide into two cells, or division into more than two cells, can cause significant problems. The image is highly filtered and manipulated, with the original red, green and blue showing up as yellow, purple and a different shade of blue.

The images showing early and late stages of centrosome duplication on the April 2008 Journal of Cellular Physiology are direct images from the microscope. So is the image on the July 2008 issue of Cell Motility and the Cytoskeleton that shows the effects of Taxol, a cancer-fighting drug that prevents microtubules from bringing about the division of the cell. Hinchcliffe’s research focuses on how eukaryokic cells undergo the process of cell division.  He is a Research Scholar of the American Cancer Society, and his work is funded by the National Institutes of Health.