Linda Brown was describing how she and her staff of illustrators and designers (1) turn raw scientific data -- which may come to them as just a bunch of numbers or something that is visually striking -- into a dazzling picture, poster, book, flyer, kit , or whatever the client needs. The "client" for Brown may be a scientist or administrator or public affairs specialist or writer or educator or other professional at the NIH.

Brown pulled out an x-ray to illustrate how pizzaz can be added to a form of data that is already inherently interesting. The black-and-white x-ray showed a person's spine, and the spine appeared to be filled with a string of sausages. (The condition i s called syringomelia.) With the help of a computer and the vision and skill of an artist, the bones were given "false color" (each color corresponding to a different density) to produce an image that shimmered and came to life on the page.

For the more "raw" forms of data, "we talk to the scientist, ask questions, and LISTEN," says Brown. "We prod the person for visual cues. If we ask the right questions, a synergistic explosion between speaker and listener will take place. Sometimes we must weasel the idea out of the person. We ask, 'What if we did this?' and sometimes a scientist will inadvertently draw the design s/he wants. I remember sitting here with a Nobel laureate, folding napkins; that was how he was eventually able to show me the three-dimensional molecular shape we were attempting to capture."

Brown's staff of six people includes illustrators and designers. She describes illustrators as people with fine arts sensibilities. Some of them teach painting or do portraits; some have taught in universities. She says illustrators may have strong emotional ties to their work. When they retire, they are likely to paint.

The designers are somewhat more like architects: they have a knack for arranging things on paper and for organizing material; they may design books. Their style is a bit more business-like. Of course both have elements and skills of the other.

"We never know who will walk through the door," says Brown, "and what needs we will have to meet. That is why both illustrators and designers are vital."

Some projects depend on both. Brown points to a poster titled "Have you ever had measles?" that brilliantly conveys, with the simplest of line drawings, the itchy, uncomfortable feeling of the disease. An illustrator made the first stab at the poster, drawing a child's exasperated face dotted with spots. Then a designer took over, switching the background from white to black, converting the grey lines to green, and splattering the face with neon pink spots. Magic! The client was thrilled, the poster won a silver medal at a professional show, and the illustrator and designer got married!

Brown says that a new dimension has been added to medical illustration by computer technology but that computers are not for everyone. "In some cases," says Brown, "computers block the creative process."

But, when computers are effective, they can speed up design, make artwork more precise, allow one to look at more possibilities (such as color options), and provide other kinds of mechanical support. "Some people get a real charge out of working on the computer, and it does not interfere with their creative process. Their brain is almost directly connected to the screen."

"The process, in either case, happens here," says Brown, as she points both index fingers at her brain. "It must be cerebral, intellectual. It's called 'concept.' If it doesn't happen in the brain, the result may be something that is a good decoration or high style, but it will not be timeless, classic, and international."

Brown looks for the perfect artistic solution to each project that comes into her office. "The continuing joy of this work is that you get to talk to interesting people, each of whom hands you a puzzle to solve. When we have the solution, we feel immense satisfaction, a real thrill. It is a pleasure to have solved a problem well."

And, what constitutes a good solution? "One," she says, "that will look as good in ten years as it does today."

Brown says that when she was a beginning art student, the challenge was to come up with one design that would fit the task. Today, the struggle for her is to narrow down the choices to the right solution. "When I am handed a puzzle now, there is an explosion of ideas in my brain." The answer may be a literal one, an abstract one, a graphic one, or some combination of these. In any case, it should be "electric."

Brown's office handles not only single-product projects like the x-ray and the poster but also those that have many pieces. In the second category are the large international conferences, such as the consensus development conferences, at which scientists and doctors from around the world gather at the NIH to look hard at a medical problem (usually a controversial one) and come to some agreement about how best to handle it.

The artwork for these conferences begins almost a year before the conference. (There may be five or six consensus development conferences each year and numerous other large conferences as well.) An enticing invitation must be designed to interest the world's experts in the conference; without them, the conference will not succeed.

The package for a conference often includes large and small posters, flyers, reports, and a book. The artists work to develop a dynamite image or logo that will appear on all the documents in the package and be pleasing to several different audiences -- the scientists, writers, and doctors who are involved from the beginning and the doctors and patients who see the final report. The artists also want their design to be one worthy of a medal in a professional show.

The NIH has a mandate from Congress to select and carry out biomedical research that will promote public health. The mandate for Brown and her staff is to illustrate these results in forms that will be interesting, attractive, and palatable (whether or not a palette is used to do it) to Congress, the general public, doctors in private practice, schools, and other audiences. Doing that effectively is really an art.

1. Linda Brown is Chief of the Design Section of Medical Arts and Photography Branch, which is in the National Center for Research Resources at the National Institutes of Health.