What They're Saying About Us

""From Conception to Birth" at the National Museum of Health & Medicine -- Through August 29. Consider this exhibit a mondo high-tech version of those film strips you watched in 7th grade health class. Indeed, this is the birds and the bees for the MTV generation...and their parents. In "From Conception to Birth," you'll see high-tech images of a growing bambino and videos on human development, among other attractions. This is definitely a don't-miss before it closes August 29 at one of the planet's funkiest museums, the National Museum of Health & Medicine (6900 Georgia Ave. NW, 202-782-2200). FREE. www.natmedmuse.afip.org."
-- Washington Flyer Entertainment, Dining and Travel News, August 21, 2003

"Whether your biological clock is ticking-or you're just hoping to find out where babies really come from-don't miss "From Conception to Birth" at the National Museum of Health and Medicine (6900 Georgia Ave. NW, 202-782-2200) through Aug. 29. You'll see high-tech images of a growing fetus and a video about human development, among other attractions."
-- Washington Flyer, July-August 2003

"Sperm cluster like autograph seekers around a star-quality egg. New cells divide and multiply. By day 44 a spinal column has appeared, and a beating heart; soon come ears to hear it. Welcome to ourselves, as we've never seen us before, from Conception to Birth. If you're not already a fan of scientist and artist Alexander Tsiaras's recent book, this first-hand look, on view at the National Museum of Health and Medicine, ought to do it. Starting with the human embryo's earliest stages of development, more than 80 images reveal shapes and patterns of growth from never-before-seen angles, in what's been called an extraordinary marriage of fine art and cutting-edge medicine. How was it done? Breakthrough medical imaging technologies helped, as did access to the museum's Carnegie Human Embryology Collection, an invaluable resource focusing on the first eight weeks of life. Tsiaras then used unique scientific visualization software to "paint" an amazing harvest of views. If your clearest look inside a womb has come courtesy of a sonogram, prepare yourself for the next generation: colors of remarkable richness and subtlety, maximum clarity, and a breathtaking wealth of detail. You can also test your prenatal know-how at an interactive display. And don't miss the ten-minute video, which offers a trip through the liveliest nine months in town. Through August 29."
-- Museums Washington, Spring/Summer 2003

"Sometimes dazzling, sometimes startling, sometimes disturbing, "From Conception to Birth: A Life Unfolds," is the visual diary of a human embryo, following its growth from a single cell to a newborn infant. We are witness to images never before seen with such beauty and clarity -- from the beating heart of a 28-day-old, grain-of-rice-sized embryo, to the step-by-step development of the lungs, the nervous system, the eyes, the ears, the teeth, the toes, even the toenails. Everything is shown in graphic, breathtaking, color-drenched detail. A pea-sized embryo is enlarged to fill an over-sized page: Inside and out, its tiny limbs and organs are a delicate marvel of intricacy. Some of the images of the embryo's early development may make it seem more alien than human, with its flipper-like limb buds and spiral tail (which starts to disappear at 36 days). Other visuals evoke the classic glowing, floating baby-in-space imagery of Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey." The book is meant to be a celebration of the process of life and its amazing machinery and architecture. This is not a science textbook on embryological development, though developmental biologists may well ooh and aah over its vivid, scientifically accurate computer-enhanced visuals. It is meant for general readers, to give them a window into the womb. Most of the images are not photos, though they appear to be. A photojournalist and artist, Alexander Tsiaras calls these computer-enhanced images visualizations. He created many of them by manipulating the 2-D data from CT and MRI scans of specimens from the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington. For example, using a magnetic resonance microscopy, or MRM, scanner, Tsiaras obtained hundreds of sequential slices of a single embryo, each a 10th of a millimeter thick, which he then manipulated to form a virtual 3-D embryo on the computer screen. The data can reveal density differences (cartilage is denser than liver tissue, which is denser than blood), and, with the right software, it's possible to distinguish one organ, one tissue, one cell, even one molecule from another. Using other digital techniques, Tsiaras can isolate any object within the embryo, make it translucent, enlarge it, and show it from any angle. He then can enhance different structures with shadow, light, and color. The book may add to the abortion debate, since the images look more delicate and human than anything seen before. And if such imaging technologies become widespread, one of their primary uses would certainly be to screen for birth defects. Whatever your views, this book is definitely worth a look for Tsiaras's stunning visuals and Barry Werth's clear text, with its well-chosen metaphors and sensible explanations of "what's going on with the baby now?" Note: Tsiaras's company, Anatomical Travelogue Inc., has a Web site that showcases "From Conception to Birth." You can access it at www.anatomicaltravel.com/Conceptiontobirth3.htm. The site is nicely organized, but be forewarned: The images can take a long time to load. Save your time and get the book; you won't be disappointed."
-- Boston Globe, February 5, 2003

"With exhibits ranging from the disturbing to the sublime, the National Museum of Health and Medicine houses a diverse collection of medical artifacts, tools, and body parts. Established in 1862 to study diseases and injuries from the Civil War, the Museum has amassed a collection so vast only one percent of it can be displayed in its 15,000 square feet of gallery space... These items in the permanent collection occupy most of the gallery space, but from now until August 29th, "Conception to Birth" is also on view. Thanks to new medical imaging technology, the exhibit displays in large, sharp photographs in full color the development of human life from vantage points not seen before, as well as a 10-minute video and interactive display."
-- Washington Families Magazine, February 2003

"This fetus was staring back at me. The others, each suspended in jars, float in sightless peace. But this one jolts you, unblinkingly. Its brain never formed, due to some alphabet-soup anomaly, and it resembles a cartoonish doll rather than a child, with doglike ears, bug eyes and protruding tongue. After I overcome the initial shock, my next thought is one I think often at the National Museum of Health and Medicine, 'How lucky I am.' Lucky that I turned out all right ' biologically, at least ' and also fortunate that I bothered to come all the way out here, to the northern point of DC, to this fascinating museum. Located within the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in the upper reaches of the district, the National Museum of Health and Medicine is actually part of an active army facility. After all, the museum began during the Civil War as the Army Medical Museum. It was the Union's catalog of specimens and instruments collected over the course of the war. Once peace broke out, it served as the army's repository for medical knowledge, focusing on combat wounds and diseases...Not all of the Museum's collection is medical or military history. On display through August 2003 is 'Conception to Birth,' an art gallery like no other. The images are from a recent book by Alexander Tsiaras, whose pictures colorfully enhance parts of human embryos and fetuses. These vivid enhancements of sights rarely seen are as otherworldly as the spacescapes captured by the Hubble telescope, and the accompanying music gives the gallery a quasi-religious feel. Of particular note are images that highlight just the skins and skeletons of a mother and her child, at three instances during childbirth. (It's hard to describe images I could not previously imagine, let alone write about, so I recommend that you see Tsiaras's work for yourself.) A worthy supplement to 'Conception to Birth' is the 'From Single Cells' section, which shows pre-natal specimens ranging from a one-month-old embryo to stillbirths. (That's where the spooky fetus and its ilk reside.) It is of course humbling for me to look at a speck of tissue and accept that I was once that small and infinitesimal. That's part of the wonder of the National Museum of Health and Medicine, though ' that one can appreciate both individuality and humanity on a scope matched only, in my opinion, by the National Air and Space Museum. But Air & Space is the most visited museum in the world. Meanwhile, relegated to the furthest reaches of DC, the National Museum of Health and Medicine receives barely a handful of visitors a day, excepting school groups. This is indeed a shame. The Museum is large enough to be thorough, yet small enough to be coherent. And freaky enough to be fun. The National Museum of Health and Medicine is located in the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, whose entrance lies at the intersection of Georgia Avenue and Elder Street. Proper ID must be presented upon entering the facility, and parking is both ample and safe. The Museum is open 10-5:30 every day except Christmas. (202) 782-2200. nmhm.washingtondc.museum."
-- Old Town Crier, January 2003

"At the National Museum of Health and Medicine, photos taken using new medical imaging technology follow human development from egg to fetus in Conception to Birth."
-- Where Washington, January 2003

"Alexander Tsiaras may be the world's most high-tech baby photographer. Or, more accurately, embryo and fetus photographer. In Tsiaras' glossy new book, "From Conception to Birth: A Life Unfolds," the development of a human being is a full-color cosmic event...For the new book, Tsiaras started by collecting images of embryo specimens kept at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, D.C. He also turned to researchers and clinicians in fertility medicine and obstetrics for the latest high-tech scans of embryos and fetuses within the womb, scans that allow scientists to see every structure and tissue in great detail and depth, Tsiaras says. With that raw material, he went to work with the computer software in his own virtual photo studio. ''Once we have a data set, we can look at it from any direction at any point of time,'' he says. Organs and systems can be isolated and illuminated; opaque surfaces can be made transparent; a fetus the size of an adult's fingertip can blossom into a detailed, two-page image. ''These images provide a new way, an additional way, to understand and describe the patterns of development,'' says Adrianne Noe, director of the National Museum of Health and Medicine. The museum has just opened an exhibit featuring more than 80 of the images and an accompanying 10-minute video. It's open through August. The exhibit, Noe says, ''is scientifically and journalistically respectful of the materials and presents them in a way that most people have never had the ability to appreciate."
-- USA Today, 11/7/2002

"With just a few keystrokes, Alexander Tsiaras does the impossible. He takes the image of a 56-day-old human embryo and peers through its skin, revealing liver, lungs, a bulblike brain and the tiny, exquisite vertebrae of a developing spine. These are no ordinary baby pictures. What Tsiaras and his colleagues are manipulating are layers of data gathered by CT scans, micro magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and other visualization techniques. When Lennart Nilsson took his groundbreaking photographs in the 1960s, he was limited to what he could innovatively capture with a flash camera. Since then, says Tsiaras, "there's been a revolution in imaging." What's changed is that development can now be viewed through a wide variety of prisms, using different forms of energy to illuminate different aspects of the fetus. CT scans, for example, are especially good at showing bone, and MRI is excellent for soft tissue. These two-dimensional layers of information are assembled, using sophisticated computer software, into a three-dimensional whole. The results are painstakingly accurate and aesthetically stunning. Tsiaras, who trained as a painter and sculptor, used medical specimens from the Carnegie Human Embryology Collection at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington as models for all but a few images. The specimens came from a variety of sources, according to museum director Adrianne Noe, including miscarriages and medically necessary procedures. None were acquired from elective abortions."
-- Time Magazine, 11/4/02

"After a 5-year gestation, the Visible Embryo is close to term. A Web site with hundreds of thousands of images capturing in mind-boggling detail the earliest stages of human development, the Visible Embryo is expected to debut later this month. "It's incredibly cool to look at how an embryo develops," says medical illustrator Elizabeth Lockett, who oversees the project for the National Museum of Health and Medicine (NMHM). The Visible Embryo is based on the 115-year-old Carnegie Embryological Collection, a remarkable set of 7,000 human embryos now housed at the national museum, a branch of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Initially, the project will post multiple high-resolution digital images of slices of 25 normal embryos at various stages of development. These are a subset of 700 embryos that researchers at the Carnegie Institution of Washington had carefully sliced into serial sections, all of which will eventually be included in the Visible Embryo. In all, the database will take about 9 terabytes of space at the San Diego Supercomputer Center, making it one of the largest medical image resources in the world. An array of collaborators joined forces to make the Visible Embryo much more than a trove of pretty pictures. Coordinated by George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, the project will have educational tools, developed by a team at the University of Illinois, Chicago, that will include animation of organ systems as they develop. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, are designing ways for clinicians in separate locations to discuss and manipulate images that apply to specific cases. Technicians performing ultrasounds on pregnant women, for example, will be able to compare stored images of normal embryos with those in utero. Oregon Health & Science University in Portland has the task of modeling and annotating images of the heart. The whole enterprise, which has cost about $3 million so far, was funded by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) as part of its Next Generation Internet Initiative. NLM also backed the Visible Human Project, a database that posted digital cross sections of a complete male in 1994 and a female the following year. Until now, researchers interested in using NMHM's collection had to travel to Washington; they came from all over the world, often staying for several weeks. "It's an absolute treasure," says Shirley A. Bayer, a professor emeritus at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis who, with her husband Joseph Altman, used the collection for their extensive publications about the development of the brain. Making the images more accessible by putting them online will have tremendous benefits, Bayer predicts. Two years ago, Lutz Breitsprecher, a maxillofacial surgeon at the University of Greifswald in Germany, spent nearly a month studying the Carnegie embryos to learn better surgical techniques. "Understanding facial development is important for better understanding how to do cleft surgery in the right way," says Breitsprecher. "There are different opinions about how to select the skin incision points. I found my answer there, and I never would have found it in the literature." Other surgeons, physical anthropologists, and the dying breed known as anatomists also have used the collection extensively. The museum-which is famous for such macabre displays as a leg in a jar and an arthritic skeleton in a rocking chair-is planning two offerings in late October to tie into the birth of the Visible Embryo. One is a new exhibit titled "From Conception to Birth" featuring photographs by Alexander Tsiaras of embryos in the collection, and the other is an overhaul of its longstanding exhibit on human development, which will include more embryos and fetuses at various stages. For those who can only visit the museum in cyberspace, log on to www.natmedmuse.afip.org for a tour of the museum and a link to the Visible Embryo Project."
-- Science Magazine, 9/6/02