Talia Greene worked with scientists at the biotech company Integral Molecular to create a real vaccine against misinformation. To do this, she rearranged the list of letters that scientists use to represent the primary structure of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein, spelling out phrases expressing COVID related falsehoods and conspiracy theories. This artificially mutated sequence describes a new version of the Spike protein, now encoded with misinformation. Integral Molecular scientists used the new sequence to synthesize an mRNA vaccine, Antisense Therapy. In theory, the vaccine would stimulate antibodies against a hypothetical SARS-CoV-2 spiked with Greene’s misinformation mutations.

During the process of creating the vaccine, human cells would glow red under a fluorescence microscope to indicate they had been infected by the virus. Talia used micrographs of these cells to create this series of work.

In addition to investigating communication and language problems between scientists and the public at large, this series highlights the problems that arise with communication between cultures and languages. While the relationship between America and China has been strained for years, the ever mutating “facts” surrounding the origin of the virus has heightened the distrust between the countries. During her BioArt residency , Talia held round table discussions among the Chinese and Chinese-American scientists at Integral Molecular to explore the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on relations between China and the United States, as well as on Chinese-Americans in this country. The outcome of these conversations takes the form of this print series, #∆!, which meditate on the nature of language, meaning and misunderstanding between countries, as well as between science and society.