QBiotics Group turn secrets of the natural world into art in celebrating 25 years of research at World Science Festival Brisbane

When QBiotics Group co-founders Dr. Victoria Gordon and Dr. Paul Reddell began their medical research company 25 years ago, using nature to find treatments for cancer and wound healing, they can be forgiven for not realising they were also creating art.

 

Unseen Worlds, presented by QBiotics Group at World Science Festival Brisbane 2025 was a stunning, large-scale installation featuring microscopic images usually reserved for viewing by researchers in labs.

 

Through artist-in-residence, donna davis and sound designer, Luke Lickfold, the images by QBiotics Group and Queensland’s leading institutions were brought to life on screen for thousands to experience in Queensland Museum’s Whale Mall.

 

The microscopic images of pollen, eucalyptus, butterfly wings, mouse cells, and fish blood vessel specimens , revealed an incredible kaleidoscope of colours, shapes and textures.

 

QBiotics’ submissions were images of Fontainea picrosperma, a seed found on the Atherton Tablelands, and a central component in the group’s anticancer treatment, ‘tigilanol tiglate’.

 

The drug is currently approved for the treatment of canine mast cell tumours (MCTs) in Australia, the USA, the EU and the UK, having treated 20,000+ dogs,(1-4) and also in human Phase II trials for head and neck cancer, and soft tissue sarcoma.(5,6)

 

During World Science Festival Brisbane, visitors were able to appreciate the unassuming seed in a whole new way with electric green pollen tubes and grains, bright yellow images of stigma of Fontainea picrosperma, and black and white images of textured spheres of pollen grains.

 

QBiotics’co-founder and microbiologist, Dr. Gordon explains the natural environment offers a vast and largely untapped source of medical innovation, by understanding how plants interact within their ecosystems.

 

“By researching the way plants defend themselves in their environment, we’ve been able to identify molecules with specific disease-targeting abilities.”

 

It’s this research, and their microscopic images that supported World Science Festival Brisbane to exhibit and celebrate QBiotics’ groundbreaking research and 25 year anniversary with audiences through a unique and artistic lens.

 

To learn more about how QBiotics uses nature to develop new treatments for cancer and wound healing, watch the video featuring co-founder, Dr. Gordon.

 

View Unseen Worlds Digital Gallery here.

 

 

Unseen Worlds featured images by QBiotics Group, donna davis – artist-in-residence, Queensland Herbarium and Biodiversity Science Unit; Geoff Thompson and Lily Kumpe, Queensland Museum; The University of Queensland’s research centres – The Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB) and The ARC Centre of Excellence in Quantum Biotechnology (QUBIC); with soundscape design by Luke Lickfold.

QBiotics Group Gallery

Unseen Worlds

References

  1. Cullen JK, Yap P-Y, Ferguson B, Bruce ZC, Koyama M, Handoko H, et al. Tigilanol tiglate is an oncolytic small molecule that induces immunogenic cell death and enhances the response of both target and non-injected tumors to immune checkpoint blockade. Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer. 2024;12(4):e006602.
  2. Grant EL, Wallace HM, Trueman SJ, Reddell PW, Ogbourne SM. Floral and reproductive biology of the medicinally significant rainforest tree, Fontainea picrosperma (Euphorbiaceae). Industrial Crops and Products. 2017;108:416-22.
  3. De Ridder TR, Campbell JE, Burke-Schwarz C, Clegg D, Elliot EL, Geller S, et al. Randomized controlled clinical study evaluating the efficacy and safety of intratumoral treatment of canine mast cell tumors with tigilanol tiglate (EBC-46). J Vet Intern Med. 2021;35(1):415-29.
  4. Musser ML, Jones PD, Goodson TL, Roof E, Johannes CM. Response to tigilanol tiglate in dogs with mast cell tumors. Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine. 2024;38(6):3162-9.
  5. ClinicalTrials.gov. A Clinical Study to Investigate the Efficacy of Tigilanol Tiglate Directly in Head and Neck Cancer 2025 [Available from: https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05608876?intr=tigilanol%20tiglate&rank=2].
  6. ClinicalTrials.gov. A Clinical Study to Investigate the Efficacy of Intratumoral Tigilanol Tiglate in Soft Tissue Sarcoma, 2025 [Available from: https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05755113?intr=tigilanol%20tiglate&rank=3].