This is the story of how Fanny Angelina Hesse (1850-1934) had the brillinat idea to use agar to grow microbes. Agar is a common dessert in Indonesia and is used in countless research laboratories around the world.Â
Thanks to agar (and to Fanny Angelina Hesse!) we have antibiotics, vaccines, and many more drugs which saved countless lives. Sadly, not many people know this story—not even those who work with agar daily (see poll below and feel free to add your answers)…
…that’s why we decided to tell the story of Fanny Angelina Hesse with a graphic novel!
What’s truly unique about our project? The story is based on unpublished historical material received from the great-grandchildren of Fanny Angelina Hesse. Some of this material we have deposited at the Museum of the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin.
We will also have some pages created with “agar art”, a technique using agar as canvas and microbes as paint. That is, microbes will help us “draw” the comic! This has never been done in a graphic novel before! See the gallery below for examples of “agar art” done by AndrĂ©s Marcoleta & Team at University of Chile and by Aleksandra Wudzinska & Jef Boeke at New York University.Â
If you look closely, you’ll be able to see the colonies (dots) of bacteria and yeast forming the paintings!
We are a diverse team of scientists and artists living on three continents. Meet the team by hovering on the pics and reading our bios.
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Fanny Angelina Hesse (1850-1934) was born Eilshemius in New York and married German physician and bacteriologist Walther Hesse (1846-1911), who in 1880-81 worked as a student of Robert Koch in Berlin.Â
Koch and others grew microbes with gelatine but had a hard time, as gelatine melts easily and is digested by microbes. Fanny Angelina, who supported the husband Walther in his work, suggested to use agar.
What is often omitted from the story, is that Fanny Angelina Hesse was a skilled scientific illustrator (see below for a stunning example).
As of early 2025, there are just a few primary sources about her: an article crediting her idea to introduced agar to the lab (published in 1939); one short scientific biography by the grandson Wolfgang Hesse (published in 1992).
There’s also an obituary from 1935, and a few textbooks mention her (as “Frau Hesse”) as the person who introduced agar to the lab. But that’s pretty much it…
…UNTIL NOW! From the great-granchildren of Fanny Angelina Hesse we have received a full, unpublished biography written by the grandson Wolfgang. This will be a major source for the graphic novel, which will present new details about her life and tell her story to a broad audience.
In June 2024, Corrado Nai wrote a history feature for Smithsonian Magazine presenting this newly resurfaced historical material.
Others before this project have written about Fanny Angelina Hesse. Among them are Asian Scientist | FEMSmicroBlog | Hispanagar | Joyful Microbes | Microbe Notes | Microbes & Us Podcast | The Microbial Menagerie | Mikrobenzirkus | Mujeres con ciencia | Popular Science and more.
Idea, concept, and coordination by Corrado Nai, science writer
Illustrations by Eliza Wolfson and Stephanie Herzog and Fanny Angelina Hesse
Website created by Sarah Wettstadt at MicroComms
We don’t assume responsibility nor ownership of third-party content!