As the Academic Health Center’s multimedia producer I get the opportunity to work with many talented and brilliant researchers.

Sometimes, the creativity and passion of these physicians and scientists literally blows you away. John Ohlfest, Ph.D., was one of those people.

I was deeply saddened to hear about the loss of John last week; he was one of the most dedicated, passionate and genuinely nice researchers I’ve ever met during my time with the AHC.

If you’ve ever watched an Academic Health Center video on our website or YouTube channel, you know that our multimedia producer Jack McTigue has a knack for boiling down complex science into videos that are easy to understand.

For example, he once used a cartoon character named “Sal” to describe how one U of M researcher is using salmonella to fight cancer cells. He’s also used animation to help the “domino donation” transplant process come to life.

We thought it would be fun to pull back the curtain a bit and show how Jack gets his creative process started.

In the end, Jack needs to ensure he understands the science tackled by our researchers. That way, he can illustrate their work to the public in a way that they’ll understand.

This is the whiteboard outside Jack’s office as he started brainstorming ideas that would result in this, his latest video.