At Liberty Science Center’s 13th annual Genius Gala, brilliant minds responsible for life-saving gene manipulation, community-rescuing meteorology, and more came together to celebrate the impact of science and the individuals who work every day to make the world a better place. To celebrate these great thinkers in science, Liberty Science Center transformed from a place where thousands of families spend their days exploring exhibits into a brilliant venue to host the guests being honored with the esteemed Genius Awards. Part of this transformation included some creativity from our very own STEM innovation team, who, in only 3 weeks, crafted over 60 DNA lamps to serve as show-stopping centerpieces across the venue.

Honoree Jennifer Doudna was in attendance, and to highlight her Nobel-Prize-winning development of CRISPR gene editing, the STEM innovation team used the iconic DNA double helix as the main structure of the centerpiece. Inspired by honoree Leo Villareal’s art installations, lights were integrated into the design in four alternating colors, representing the four nucleotide bases found in DNA– adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine.

Creating these bespoke works of art was the result of hard work and dedication utilizing tools found right here at Liberty Science Center. The STEM innovation team, consisting of Rosa Catala-Steidle, Alejandro Melendez, and Brandon Daniels, utilized the LSC MakerLab to 3D print the frames in-house. This was no simple task, as each individual centerpiece required multiple prints, totaling in about 6 hours of print time per product. Post print, the additional work required to physically assemble the pieces upped the total time to about 2 days per DNA strip!