“The Galaxy Within” on the cover of NeuroImmune Pharmacology & Therapeutics

“As the presumed seat of consciousness, the infinity of questions still surrounding the brain are as nebulous as those surrounding our infinite Universe. We are but stars in the end; and in the beginning.”

The quotation above appears in a caption for “The Galaxy Within”, a Creative Commons-licensed image that won Jury’s Choice award in the 2017 Wiki Science Competition in the United States. The image credits its creation to Dchordpdx (an alias of Dustin Johnsen, Ph.D.). Dr. Johnsen was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, and grew up in South Dakota before a career split between neuroscience, mortgage lending, and biomedical entrepreneurship.

In developing the new open-access journal NeuroImmune Pharamcology and Therapeutics (NIPT), now published by De Gruyter in conjunction with the University of Nebraska Press, editors chose Dr. Johnsen’s vivid capture of astrocytes and neurons in “The Galaxy Within” to serve as the cover image for the new interdisciplinary biomedical journal at the intersection of neuroscience, immunology, pharmacology, and therapeutics (Figure 1).

Figure 1:

“The Galaxy Within” appears on the cover of the open-access journal NIPT. The SNIP-owned journal launched in early 2022.

Along with his award-winning cover image, this letter presents a collection of some of Dr. Johnsen’s favorite images from his “immunostaining days”—both neurons and astrocytes, all in vitro. “Resolution is limited because these were taken back in the late oughts when digital microscopy was still rather grainy”, he said.

The “Galaxy Within” image is 10X magnification of primary postnatal (P0–P2) mouse cortical neurons and astrocytes. Neurons (red) are immunostained with neuro-specific microtubule-associated protein 2 (MAP2), while astrocytes are immunostained with astrocyte-specific glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP). Blue color identifies cell nuclei using 4′,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI) staining. These cells were a part of experiments investigating cell death processes following reactive oxygen species exposure, a process inherent to neurodegenerative diseases. Experiments were also designed to investigate differences between neurons and astrocytes, a significant yet under-investigated cell type in the brain.

“I’m happy to further the intersection of art and science. The importance of creativity in science is often understated, and I feel celebrating the artistic value in science only furthers new ideas and discovery”, Dr. Johnsen said. “All images applied the same staining. Red is always neurons. Green or yellow are astrocytes. Blue is nuclei”.

He obtained his doctorate in neuroscience from Oregon Health and Science University in 2011, and he continued with the program as a postdoctoral scientist (2014–2016). He co-founded Cynvest (2011–2016) before serving as Chief Science Officer at Applied Neural Networks (2017–2018). Since then, Dr. Johnsen shifted his attention to mortgage loan work with OnPoint Community Credit Union but remains active in biomedical entrepreneurship and start-ups.

Dr. Johnsen produced the following immunostaining images (Figures 2–6)—including “The Galaxy Within”—from visually compelling yet unpublished frames captured during his lab work for Oregon Health and Science University’s Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine. The work contributed to three publications available on PubMed Central [1–3].

Figure 2:

“The Galaxy Within” shows immunostained mouse cortical cell culture with cell nuclei (blue from DAPI), astrocytes (green and yellow from GFAP), and neurons (red from MAP2) by Dchordpdx, CC BY 4.0 (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Galaxy_Within.jpg).

Figures 3–4:

These two images show neurons from mouse cortical cell culture immunostained in red with MAP2.

Figures 5–6:

These two images show astrocytes from mouse cortical cell culture immunostained in yellow with GFAP.