Minding the Gap:
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(1) Bi-directional transfer of knowledge between matrix biology and textile innovation with Genevieve Dion - included in the permanent collection of the V&A; Fig 3);
(2) Analysis of breast tissue surface structure using Mercator Map plots as a visual measurement device (JL; Fig 4, lower panel; basic science report); (3) Atomic Force Microscopy to feel the physicality of cell surfaces in the search for new mechanisms relating to breast cancer metastases (JL; Agne Taraseviciute, MD, PhD thesis, UCHSC/UPenn); (4) Computational clustering/tiling of high throughput plasma proteomic molecular data to identify new diagnostic markers in different forms of pulmonary hypertension (JL; basic science report); (5) “Painting” metal stents using with GFP-labeled plasmids to trace gene transduction into living cells as a new and continuous therapeutic modality for cardiovascular disease (JL collaboration with Robert J Levy at CHOP; basic science report); (6) Creating de-cellularized architectural scaffolds at the tissue level scale to understand how the cell-built microenvironment affects genetic code usage and systems behavior (JL; basic science report); (7) Advanced imaging of engineered breast tissue leading to the discovery of new mechanisms regarding lumen formation in the normal and cancerous breast (JL; see above). These studies were subsequently used to rapidly prototype novel 3-D forms and spaces in multiple materials, including those composed of ceramics (LS; Fig 5; AIA report); |
Figure 3: Shibori-pleated red silk flower dress by Genevieve Dion with Peter Lloyd Jones. In the permanent collection of the V&A. Photograph from Jones’s personal archive.
Figure 4 (upper): MEMs device to measure matrix-dependent smooth muscle cell contractility. Jones lab personal archive.
Figure 4 (lower): Mapping surface roughness in a mammary acini 3D culture using Mercator plots. In Taraseviciuete et al, Am J Path (2010). Jones lab archive.
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Figure 5 (left panel): 100um diameter fluorescent image of normal breast tissue culture from“Quantitative analysis of 3-D human mammary epithelial tissue architecture reveals a role for tenascin-C in regulating c-met function,” (American Journal of Pathology, Vol 176, pp 827-833, 2010). Jones lab archive.
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Figure 5 (right panel): Ground Substance by Sabin+Jones LabStudio. An abstract derivative of Fig 5 (left panel) which quantifies and spatializes cellular and tissue contour information using normal human mammary epithelial cells.
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(8) Dance movements as a catalyst for personalizing diagnosis and treatment of human disease (JL & LS; Fig 6; UPenn report);
Figure 6: A different way of viewing Smooth Muscle Cell choreographies using computational tools co-created between architectural and biological design research at the Sabin+Jones LabStudio (2009). Jones Lab and LabStudio archives. Work by Erica Savig.
(9) Measuring cell-contractility forces on chemically engineered matrix surfaces through photolithography and protein engineering to reimagine the design of passive, energy-generating building façades (JL & LS; Fig 7; NSF grant report);
Figure 7: eSkin: Cell biological studies in the Jones lab inspired the design of a responsive building façade. Team contributions by Shu Yang (materials science), Jan Van der Spiegel & Nader Engheta (Co-PIs) (electrical and systems engineering), Kaori Ihida-Stansbury, Peter Lloyd Jones (Co-PIs) (cell biology), University of Pennsylvania; Jenny E. Sabin (Co-PI) and Andrew Lucia. Jones lab and LabStudio archives.
(10) Investigating part-to-whole relationships revealed during the generation of branched structures formed in real-time by interacting lung endothelial cells placed within a 3D matrix environment (JL; Fig 8, left panel). The resulting installation, titled “Branching Morphogenesis”(LS; Fig 8, right panel) materializes five slices in time that capture the force network exerted by interacting vascular cells upon their matrix environment. The time lapses manifest as five vertical, interconnected layers made from over 75,000 cable zip ties. Viewers are invited to walk around and in-between the layers, and immerse themselves within an organic and newly created “Datascape” fusing dynamic cellular change with the body and human occupation (Science magazine report);
Figure 8: Jones lab studies on vascular networking behavior in endothelial cells (left panel) gave rise to a large scale datascape, created in the Sabin+Jones LabStudio. Winning entry of the 2009 AAAS/NSF International Visualization Challenge. LabStudio archive.
(11) Remote-sensing of human and botanical data to co-design a large-scale public plaza-based installation to support The Rail Park of Philadelphia (MS collaboration with Jenny Sabin Studio leading design). The “Beacon for Health and Wellness Futures” included app- and sensor-based alterations in light and sound were generatively designed to alter mood and attitudes towards imminent health technologies, and included drones weaving app-derived data using smart fibers (Fig 9);
Figure 9: The BEACON for Health and Wellness Futures (2018). A MEDstudio collaboration with Peter Lloyd Jones and Jenny Sabin Studios leading design. Photo by Cory Popp. MEDstudio archives.
(12) Taking a “New Look” at design and creativity with artist/physician Michael Natter and Philadelphia business leaders through the critically-acclaimed fashion documentary “Dior and I” (MS), and (13) A MEDstudio-based course titled POST.CODE resulting in a unique, time-warping language embedded within a hand-crafted, hand-tooled, triptych sculpture made jointly by students in architecture, medicine and engineering. Inspiration included extracellular matrix biology, tensegrity, linguistics, and the Eames Office film “Powers of Ten” (MS; Fig 10).
Figure 10: POST.CODE. An inter-disciplinary MEDstudio (2017). Photo by Shannon McClean. MEDstudio archive.
Additive & Catabolic Effects in Science and Art
Clearly, there are countless other retro- and prospective ways to link Art and Design with Science and Technology (see labstudio.org and thestudioscientist.com for many more examples), reveal their relationships to be co-dependent and reciprocal. Britain’s most famous living artist David Hockney has documented a convincing example of this through his theories on the use of lenses and the camera obsura in art making, and Van Eyck, who arguably produced the first “Selfie” in his masterpiece titled The Arnolfini Wedding Portrait, provides a graphic example of what Hockney means. This latter aspect of scientific and technological additive making/manufacturing is also evident in reverse - exerting effects that may be subtractive, or even purposefully destructive in nature. Historical and contemporary studies in death, decay and regeneration include work by Joseph Beuys, Robin Dintiman, and Andy Goldsworthy.
Destruction in and of Art also happens unintentionally - especially if the power of Science interacting with the environment is ignored, or knowledge of it’s potential power is not understood or does not yet exist. In this sense, 16th century Venetians were given a valuable lesson in the transformative power of nature’s chemistry acting on Art, as they watched one Titian’s and Giorgione’s water-based frescoes vanish from view due to their destruction by salty sirocco winds sweeping across Venice’s lagoons (link to article). As a solution-based species, however, Titian and his contemporaries reacted to this irreversible calamity by developing alternative site-specific technologies, in this case the use of novel pigments and oil-based solvents. Coincidentally, these same processes and materials have also given rise to how nature is observed and portrayed in cell and molecular biological science of destruction and regeneration, which formed part of the focus of my own work in cancer, stem cell and lung biology for the past three decades.
As part of that laboratory research, my collaborators and I have spent much of our adult lives literally sitting in the dark, staring down systems of finely-tuned, glass lenses that are housed within precision microscopes as a means of viewing ultrathin slices of tissue, as if prepared at a Lilliputian deli. On other days, we may be observing salt-infused cell cultures—locked, and often literally frozen in time and/or space-- that ultimately connect to our own neuro-visual systems of lenses and detectors through the combined use of light interacting with natural, bioengineered and artificial pigments, as well as oil-based mountants that offer additional sample preservation, and/or a high refractive index for optimal imaging. These reagents and instruments ultimately synergize to collectively allow the eye and brain, coupled with superfast artificial detectors and software, to simultaneously detect and capture detailed images and stories that lie within cells, molecules, tissues and whole bodies, and all at an incredible scale.
All said and done, the story of microscopy alone is one that is deeply rooted in Salty Oceans (from fluorescent jellyfish to volcano vents), Sandy Beaches (giving rise to glass) and Oily substances (as solvents and optical aids)-- things that are all evident within the ongoing history and technology of Art, as indicated above. When considering the infinite numbers and combinations of molecules and their assemblies produced in nature or synthetically, one can only be optimistic about future possibilities between these fields. This situation would be vastly improved, however, if artists and scientists would spend time understanding their common and distinct pasts, while learning how to communicate in slower and far more complex ways, purposefully avoiding the “Easy Spectacular” practice of borrowing, direct mimicry, and size-scaling for effect and affect alone. Without this type of “Collaborative Care”, how can we expect to leapfrog over existing physical and mental constraints created by politics, prejudice, borders, and existing material ties?
Sci-Art Futures
Despite the apparent resurgence in interest between Science and Art, a combination of human factors continue to fuel their segregation. These include: (1) Major cultural differences between the structure, funding and management of a modern lab, which always relies upon peer review and collaboration, versus an art studio, within which that isn’t necessarily so, or indeed even required; (2) The stealth-like, highly-focused “Search and Find” function of the internet, described so eloquently by the architectural historian Mario Carpo, which inadvertently allows us to ignore details that are abstract or other, but that may nonetheless have meaning if others were made aware of their existence, or we were indeed allowed to rigorously critique one another; (3) The massive rise of non-expert experts, science denialists, anti-intellectualism, and the cult of personality, and (4) Declines in attention span, new economic pressures, and shifting value judgments centered often around new technological and social media trends.
Whether some of these hurdles were accounted by the ultimate polymath, Leonardo da Vinci, is impossible to state. Attempts to decipher his genetic code are underway, with the hope that this will reveal the nature of his genius. Decoding da Vinci using his DNA alone, however, is unlikely to provide a full answer to this problem given the rapidly expanding knowledge in the fields of epigenetics, emergence, and complexity theory - which clearly show that altering context is a major determinant of how any code performs... a useful metaphor perhaps for those interested in the re-contextualization of Art and Science, especially when carefully filtered through Nature and Design in highly S’TEAM’D ways.
Clearly, there are countless other retro- and prospective ways to link Art and Design with Science and Technology (see labstudio.org and thestudioscientist.com for many more examples), reveal their relationships to be co-dependent and reciprocal. Britain’s most famous living artist David Hockney has documented a convincing example of this through his theories on the use of lenses and the camera obsura in art making, and Van Eyck, who arguably produced the first “Selfie” in his masterpiece titled The Arnolfini Wedding Portrait, provides a graphic example of what Hockney means. This latter aspect of scientific and technological additive making/manufacturing is also evident in reverse - exerting effects that may be subtractive, or even purposefully destructive in nature. Historical and contemporary studies in death, decay and regeneration include work by Joseph Beuys, Robin Dintiman, and Andy Goldsworthy.
Destruction in and of Art also happens unintentionally - especially if the power of Science interacting with the environment is ignored, or knowledge of it’s potential power is not understood or does not yet exist. In this sense, 16th century Venetians were given a valuable lesson in the transformative power of nature’s chemistry acting on Art, as they watched one Titian’s and Giorgione’s water-based frescoes vanish from view due to their destruction by salty sirocco winds sweeping across Venice’s lagoons (link to article). As a solution-based species, however, Titian and his contemporaries reacted to this irreversible calamity by developing alternative site-specific technologies, in this case the use of novel pigments and oil-based solvents. Coincidentally, these same processes and materials have also given rise to how nature is observed and portrayed in cell and molecular biological science of destruction and regeneration, which formed part of the focus of my own work in cancer, stem cell and lung biology for the past three decades.
As part of that laboratory research, my collaborators and I have spent much of our adult lives literally sitting in the dark, staring down systems of finely-tuned, glass lenses that are housed within precision microscopes as a means of viewing ultrathin slices of tissue, as if prepared at a Lilliputian deli. On other days, we may be observing salt-infused cell cultures—locked, and often literally frozen in time and/or space-- that ultimately connect to our own neuro-visual systems of lenses and detectors through the combined use of light interacting with natural, bioengineered and artificial pigments, as well as oil-based mountants that offer additional sample preservation, and/or a high refractive index for optimal imaging. These reagents and instruments ultimately synergize to collectively allow the eye and brain, coupled with superfast artificial detectors and software, to simultaneously detect and capture detailed images and stories that lie within cells, molecules, tissues and whole bodies, and all at an incredible scale.
All said and done, the story of microscopy alone is one that is deeply rooted in Salty Oceans (from fluorescent jellyfish to volcano vents), Sandy Beaches (giving rise to glass) and Oily substances (as solvents and optical aids)-- things that are all evident within the ongoing history and technology of Art, as indicated above. When considering the infinite numbers and combinations of molecules and their assemblies produced in nature or synthetically, one can only be optimistic about future possibilities between these fields. This situation would be vastly improved, however, if artists and scientists would spend time understanding their common and distinct pasts, while learning how to communicate in slower and far more complex ways, purposefully avoiding the “Easy Spectacular” practice of borrowing, direct mimicry, and size-scaling for effect and affect alone. Without this type of “Collaborative Care”, how can we expect to leapfrog over existing physical and mental constraints created by politics, prejudice, borders, and existing material ties?
Sci-Art Futures
Despite the apparent resurgence in interest between Science and Art, a combination of human factors continue to fuel their segregation. These include: (1) Major cultural differences between the structure, funding and management of a modern lab, which always relies upon peer review and collaboration, versus an art studio, within which that isn’t necessarily so, or indeed even required; (2) The stealth-like, highly-focused “Search and Find” function of the internet, described so eloquently by the architectural historian Mario Carpo, which inadvertently allows us to ignore details that are abstract or other, but that may nonetheless have meaning if others were made aware of their existence, or we were indeed allowed to rigorously critique one another; (3) The massive rise of non-expert experts, science denialists, anti-intellectualism, and the cult of personality, and (4) Declines in attention span, new economic pressures, and shifting value judgments centered often around new technological and social media trends.
Whether some of these hurdles were accounted by the ultimate polymath, Leonardo da Vinci, is impossible to state. Attempts to decipher his genetic code are underway, with the hope that this will reveal the nature of his genius. Decoding da Vinci using his DNA alone, however, is unlikely to provide a full answer to this problem given the rapidly expanding knowledge in the fields of epigenetics, emergence, and complexity theory - which clearly show that altering context is a major determinant of how any code performs... a useful metaphor perhaps for those interested in the re-contextualization of Art and Science, especially when carefully filtered through Nature and Design in highly S’TEAM’D ways.
Peter Lloyd Jones is an award-winning cell and molecular biologist and studio scientist whose research, teaching, and practice explore how novel collaborations between art, science, and design can advance these and other fields, including biomedical research, medical education, healthcare innovation and design research. Jones is the first Associate Dean of Emergent Design and Creative Technologies at The Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University (TJU), where in 2013 he was recruited to become Founder and Executive Director of MEDstudio@JEFF - a research and education unit representing the first design school of its type to be established within a US medical school. Jones completed his undergraduate degree in Molecular Biology (BSc (Hons)) at Liverpool University, and his Ph.D. in Cancer Biology at Cambridge University (Queens’ College). This was followed by post-doctoral fellowships at UC Berkeley, and the University of Toronto. In 2005, Jones became a tenured Associate Professor of Pathology and Lecturer in Architecture at The University of Pennsylvania where he established his lab, as well as a national cell center for the study of lung disease related to hypertension.
In 2006, he co-founded the Sabin+Jones LabStudio with world-renowned architectural researcher Jenny E. Sabin, and in parallel was co-appointed as lecturer in architecture within The UPenn Graduate School of Design (GSD). LabStudio remains a unique, radical research experiment that paired scientists with architects in both lab and studio in order to develop new and reciprocal languages and innovative modes of working in art, design, science and healthcare. Jones is widely published with more than 120 scientific and design publications, and his awards include multiple grants from the NIH, The American Heart Association, The Graham Foundation, The American Institute of Architects, and The US Departments of Commerce and Defense. In 2015, Jones became the sole medical academician for co-acquisition of a $135m DOD MIT-based grant to develop smart fibers and textiles for use in healthcare, architecture, sports and space. His collaborative work with Jenny Sabin, published in a 2017 book titled “LabStudio”, has been described by Antoine Picon, Research Director at Harvard’s GSD, as being “inseparable from a profound evolution of our vision of life”. Jones is currently on sabbatical at Imagination Lancaster within the Lancaster Institute for Contemporary Art at Lancaster University where he is conducting scientific and design research for his next book titled COLLAB-ORATOR.
In 2006, he co-founded the Sabin+Jones LabStudio with world-renowned architectural researcher Jenny E. Sabin, and in parallel was co-appointed as lecturer in architecture within The UPenn Graduate School of Design (GSD). LabStudio remains a unique, radical research experiment that paired scientists with architects in both lab and studio in order to develop new and reciprocal languages and innovative modes of working in art, design, science and healthcare. Jones is widely published with more than 120 scientific and design publications, and his awards include multiple grants from the NIH, The American Heart Association, The Graham Foundation, The American Institute of Architects, and The US Departments of Commerce and Defense. In 2015, Jones became the sole medical academician for co-acquisition of a $135m DOD MIT-based grant to develop smart fibers and textiles for use in healthcare, architecture, sports and space. His collaborative work with Jenny Sabin, published in a 2017 book titled “LabStudio”, has been described by Antoine Picon, Research Director at Harvard’s GSD, as being “inseparable from a profound evolution of our vision of life”. Jones is currently on sabbatical at Imagination Lancaster within the Lancaster Institute for Contemporary Art at Lancaster University where he is conducting scientific and design research for his next book titled COLLAB-ORATOR.
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