A BETA CELL-EBRATION
www.shelleylowenstein.com




My work is at the intersection of art and science.
Fanciful, bold and optimistic.
The work is accurate and based on state-of-the-art research.
But it is not scientific illustration.

I am fascinated by one life-sustaining cell – the remarkable BETA CELL.
My goal is to make beta cells famous.
For too long, they have been underappreciated and overlooked.



SOME FUN FACTS:

• We all have beta cells.
Beta cells are essential for life.

• Beta cells are among the hardest working cells in the human body.

• We only have about the tip of your pinky’s worth of beta cells.
Not a lot for so much work.

• Beta cells make insulin.
What’s remarkable is that they “know” exactly how much to make and when to release it….so that we have the energy we need for life.

• On call, 24/7, a working beta cell produces 6,000 molecules of insulin each second. It emerges from the beta cell in powerful spurts and sparks.

• Insulin gets so much credit… The beta cell is the brains of the operation.