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The deadline for submitting entries for the 2024 Agar Art Contest has passed; no further submissions will be accepted.

Stay tuned for the announcment of the 2024 contest winners in early December.

Due to irregularities in voting last year, we will not be conducting a "People's Choice" vote this year.

Thank you for your interest in and support of the Agar Art Contest! Questions? Contact communications@asmusa.org.

Have you ever seen art "painted" in a petri dish using living, growing microorganisms? That's agar art! Creators use either naturally colorful microbes—like the red bacteria Serratia marcescens—or genetically modified microbes—like the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae transformed with violacein genes—as "paint," while using various types, shapes and sizes of agar as a "canvas." In fact, the original agar artist was none other than himself!

How to Create Agar Art: Video Tutorial

Step inside the creative process with Agar Art 2015 winners Maria Peñil Cobo, mixed media artist, and Mehmet Berkmen, Ph.D., staff scientist at New England Biolabs. During their multi-year collaboration, Peñil Cobo and Berkmen have created astonishing works of art using living microbes. Find out how they meld science and art with this behind-the-scenes how-to video guide.

Need a little inspiration to get your Agar Art creative juices flowing? Read on!

• Top 5 Tips for Creating Agar Art.
• Inspiring High School Students' Creativity and Design Thinking with Agar Art.
• Creating Art and Education with Microbes.
• A Petri Dish is Worth 1,000 Words: The Lasting Impact of ASM’s Agar Art Contest.

In 2015, ASM launched the ASM Agar Art Contest to share the beautiful and diverse world of microbes with the public. Since then, the wide range of amazingly beautiful entries has gained worldwide attention.

• As part of "Agar Art on Display," a public event at ASM Microbe 2022 covered by .
• 200+ media outlets, including .
• The in Jersey City, N.J.
• At the AMR Challenge celebration in New York during the 2019 °®¶¹´«Ã½ Nations General Assembly.

Questions?

Contact us at communications@asmusa.org.

Key Dates

Nov. 11-Nov. 22 | People's Choice voting

Week of Dec. 9 | Winners Announced

We are grateful to our contest sponsors, who help support the Agar Art Contest, partner workshops and other associated events throughout the year.

MilliporeSigma’s portfolio spans more than 300,000 products with 19,000 employees and 72 manufacturing sites worldwide. Their BioMonitoring portfolio offers a complete range of high-quality microbial testing solutions for industrial applications, while also providing regulatory expertise, comprehensive services and collaborative partnerships. on their website. MilliporeSigma is the U.S. and Canada Life Science business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany.