Hiva

This is a commissioned acrylic painting on canvas (85cm x 60cm), created for the oNKo-innate Pty Ltd.

The painting is called “Hiva”, a Kurdish word, which means “Hope”. The purple colour represents a cancer cell, and the teal represents immune cells. Cells of both the innate and adaptive immune system play important roles in fighting cancer. Natural Killer (NK) cells are a subset of the innate immune system that recognise and kill tumour cells without any priming or prior activation. The immune cells at the top of the painting are NK cells. These cells increase inflammation in the tumour microenvironment so that other immune cells, such as T cells, travel to the tumour site.

CD8 T cells are a subset of adaptive immune cells and they need priming by antigen presenting cells to recognise tumour cells based on specific tumour features or antigens. The immune cell shown at the bottom right of the painting is a cytotoxic CD8 T cell that has receptors specific to the tumour antigens. The flower in the centre of the tumour cell represents tumour antigens (the identity of the tumour cell), and the T cell recognising this specific tumour cell has a matching pattern.

Both NK cells and cytotoxic CD8 T cells release Granzymes (cell death-inducing enzymes, shown as small dots) in tumour cells, which in turn induces programmed cell death (apoptosis, shown in gold).