The undergraduates were encouraged to experiment with ideas through creating pictures with bacteria as part of a lab competition.

The event is related to a second year module on microbiology run by Dr Jackie Parry and Dr Rod Dillon from Biomedical Life Sciences.

Their artwork in a petri dish explored themes like infection and science funding as part of the contest.

Dr Dillon said: “The idea is to stimulate their creative juices and develop a piece of work that communicates concepts related to microbial communication and death.

“It’s about encouraging the students to think in a more open ended and conceptual way.

“Taking part in this enables them to nurture that creativity in their degree and also points them towards new avenues, like advertising as a career for example.”

The winner was Anna Brotherston who created artwork based on the rise of antibiotic resistance illustrated by MRSA - Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

She said: "I never expected to win and it was a lovely suprise! It was so enjoyable to be able to use lab based skills we had learnt previously in this module and give them a new creative lease of life, something none of us in the class had ever done before."

Second place went to Christina Gifford for an image about bacterial communication system called quorum sensing. Third was Elise Robinson with artwork based on how research benefits the West.

This is the third year the competition has run.

Artist Ross Dalziel who helped out at the event said: “It’s a form of problem solving to create art out of microbes, a way of learning by doing in the same way that designers work.”