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Adin M Aoki (604 Allison Rd, Piscataway, NJ 08854)
Spinal Cord Injury is the body's 9/11. A neuroimmune swamp and cataclysm of statistical variance, the injury breaks down barriers and mixes factors once uncommon to one another: foreign pathogens, neurons, and immune cells. I created this oil painting to describe to both scientists and the general populace the molecular, sytemic, and societal emergency that is Spinal Cord Injury. Wielding both art and science, one can use color and metaphor to visually make sense of biological mystery: Like hijacked planes, vicinal bacteria are susceptible to opportunistic phages and quickly invade the body. Brave firefighters - the neutrophil, monocyte, and tentacular dendritic cell - follow the blood's chemokines and bring gaseous artillery to the battle to extinguish the injury site. Who is the enemy to recovery among the chaos? The first responders? The pathogens? Both? It is not the initial impact that kills the most in Spinal Cord Injury. It is a "Secondary Injury" from a neuroimmune war that immediately ensues. As terror destroys a nation, a systemic shock, sepsis, claims the lives of many; as a country was paralyzed, so is the body. How can a nation heal? Can this war be prevented?