TIME – Metabolic science on display in the 'The World is in You'

"We wanted to think about body time, inspired by the science of circadian rhythms, which thinks about how our bodies live in time, the cycles of time every day." 🌚🏃‍♀️🌞

Circadian biology is the science of the body clock, which are set to the timing of the 24-hour rotation of the earth. It's a field of research that interests our scientists at CBMR, in particular Associate Professor Zach Gerhart-Hines, whose team interested in how all the different cellular clocks within your body coordinate every behaviour or metabolic process in your body to maintain metabolic health.

When the curators of Medical Museion's latest exhibition, 'The World is in You', decided on Time as one of the four themes, they brought in Zach's research team to collaborate on a film. They commissioned artist Isabella Martin to explore the theme, and she ended followed scientists in the laboratories at CBMR who carry out experiments at all times of day and night to produce the work 'Time Animals'.

Medical Museion historian and Postdoc Kristin Hussey says: "what we were trying to do with this work is interrogate not necessarily what chronobiology is, but what it feels like to be one of the people who are doing it."

The Medical Museion is a museum of medical history and also, like CBMR, part of the University of Copenhagen. While they are home to a historic collection of medical objects and put on exhibitions, they also carry out research. Some of this research takes place within CBMR, under the research programme Metabolic Science in Culture.

This is a unique collaboration whose goal is situate metabolic science in cultural, historical, and philosophical context through humanities and science communication research, which in turn informs innovative public engagement practices.