Choreographing the ups and downs of living with Lupus

Featuring

  • Tislarm Bouie (Choreography / Dance)
  • Alessandra Pernis (Hospital for Special Surgery; Autoimmunity & Inflammation Program)

Overview

The Pernis Lab is interested in understanding the molecular mechanisms employed by lymphocytes to accurately respond to the signals that guide them along specific pathways and activities. Lymphocytes, including B & T cells, are cells of the immune system that play a critically active role in fighting off disease and infections. The Pernis lab is particularly interested in understanding how when things go wrong in the immune system, it can lead to autoimmunity (the immune system starts attacking ‘self’) such as in Lupus (SLE) and Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA). Their goal is to gain a mechanistic understanding of the signaling pathways that control both physiologic (normal) and pathologic (disease inducing) immune (T cell) responses and further delineate the molecular networks responsible for lymphocyte dysfunction in autoimmune diseases, a detailed understanding of which will enable us to gain a better understanding of the pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases like SLE and RA and provide important information for the development of novel therapeutic regimens for the treatment of SLE and RA

Solstice is a work about a young woman living with Lupus. It shows the effect the disease can have on ones daily life, fighting against all odds and to keep going when you feel like the world is caving in on you. You must live life to its fullest potential!

Bios

Tislarm Bouie

Tislarm Bouie was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He graduated The Professional Performing Arts School/ of New York City, as a dance major in partnership with The Ailey School. He received his B.F.A in dance from The University of the Arts. Tislarm has also studied at The Mark Morris Dance School, Joffrey Ballet School and Philadelphia School of the Arts. He has attended summer intensives at Britney Spears Camp for the Performing Arts, Ballet Hispanico, Broadway Dance Center and Earl Mosley’s Institute of the Arts all on scholarship. He was a member of Philadanco’s 2nd Company, Ronald K. Brown’s Evidence Dance Company (US Tour), performed with Chinese recording artist Jo (Chinese Tour), is currently on faculty at Steps on Broadway. He was recently featured in a Macys and World Cup 2014 commercial. He is a client of MSA Talent Agency. Tislarm’s choreography was featured at The Young Choreographers and the Dumbo Dance Festival and on the Cocoa Cola Tour with Def Jam recording artist Karina Pasian. He is excited to see what “The love of his life” dance has to offer.

Alessandra Pernis

Hospital for Special Surgery; Autoimmunity & Inflammation Program

The Pernis Lab is interested in understanding the molecular mechanisms employed by lymphocytes to accurately respond to the signals that guide them along specific pathways. Lymphocytes are cells of the immune system that respond to infections and disease. Initial work in the Pernis lab focused on Interferon Regulatory Factor 4 (IRF4), which functions as a transcription factor and is highly expressed (present) in cells of the immune system. A transcription factor is a protein that binds to specific DNA sequences, thereby controlling the flow (or transcription) of genetic information from DNA to ultimately produce a native protein (via an intermediary called messenger RNA). Transcription factors can perform their function alone or with other proteins in a complex, by promoting (as an activator), or blocking (as a repressor) the flow of genetic information. Activating or repressing the flow of genetic information in a cell can have profound but various effects on cellular growth, activity, and function.

Absence of the transcription factor IRF4 leads to profound defects in the function and homeostasis (balance) of particular lymphocyte subsets of the immune system called, T and B lymphocyte cells. Early studies in the Pernis lab demonstrated that IRF4 is up-regulated in response to lymphocyte cell activation and that it controls crucial cell processes like cytokine (chemical mediators responsible for ‘communication’ between immune cells) production and apoptosis (programmed cell death); directly supporting the idea that IRF4 plays a central role in lymphocyte biology.

Recent studies from the Pernis lab, have demonstrated that IRF4 is a critical regulator of T lymphocyte cell differentiation (development) down a particular cell fate pathway called TH-17 and that IRF4 is absolutely required for the production of IL-17 and IL-21. IL-17 & IL-21 are two cytokines that have recently been implicated in the pathogenesis of multiple autoimmune disorders including systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE; lupus) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA). In order to gain a more detailed mechanistic understanding of the signaling pathways that control both physiologic and pathologic T cell responses, the Pernis lab is also presently studying the broader IRF4 regulatory network, which includes the protein Def6. The long-term goals of the laboratory are to employ both murine models and translational (clinical) approaches to further delineate the molecular networks responsible for lymphocyte dysfunction in autoimmune diseases. A detailed understanding of these mechanisms will enable us to gain a better understanding of the pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases like SLE and RA and provide important information for the development of novel therapeutic regimens for the treatment of SLE and RA.

 

Composing jazz for cancer detection research

Featuring

  • Daniel Heller (Nanotechnology, Biomedical Engineer) 
  • Nick Dunston (Music / Jazz / Bass)

Overview

Combining materials science, nanotechnology, and biomedical engineering, the Heller lab works on tiny solutions to big problems. The focus of the lab is the development of new types of nanoscale (extremely small!) materials that are designed specifically to solve clinical problems. For example, the lab is developing carbon nanotube-based sensors to detect early-stage cancers, as well as nanoparticles to target drugs to metastatic tumors. Working at the intersection of researchers who are striving to understand the causes of cancer and with physicians who understand the clinical realities of the disease, the Heller lab stands to develop therapies that improve patient survival and quality of life.

“Subtle Treatment” is Dunston's first commissioned composition. Dunston describes his work as being "modeled with the mindset of the score to a short film. The short film being what I envisioned when examining Dr. Daniel Heller’s work."

Bios

Nick Dunston

Music / Jazz / Bass

Nick Dunston was born in Washington D.C. and raised in New York City, Nick’s musical training started formally on the cello at age 5, then the trombone at age 13. He started playing the electric bass in middle school, playing in various school ensembles and in bands with classmates. This eventually led to taking classical bass lessons at the Juilliard MAP program, and playing in school and community jazz ensembles. Nick has received outstanding soloist awards from the Charles Mingus High School Jazz competition, as well as the Essentially Ellington Regional Jazz competition. He is also a recipient of the LaGuardia Arts High School Composer’s award. Nick has performed with musicians such as Bruce Barth, Don Sickler, Mark Sherman, Terrell Stafford, and Scott Robinson. He currently studies privately with Linda Oh, and will be attending The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in the fall of 2014. As a bassist, Nick is extremely versatile. While he is rooted in jazz and contemporary music, he has a strong foundation and interest in other types of music, such as pop, folk, alternative rock, funk, and hip hop. He strongly believes that whether it comes to playing or composing, all musicians should strive for honesty, thoughtfulness, individuality, and innovation.

Daniel Heller

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center; Molecular Pharmacology & Chemistry Program

Daniel Heller’s research focus is rooted in Nanotechnology. Nanotechnology can be defined as manipulation of matter and/or molecules with at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometers – so, extremely (!) tiny. Nanotechnology as defined by size is naturally very broad and as such nanotechnology has the potential for a variety applications for research, industrial, and military use. Advances in nanotechnology may be able to create many new materials and devices with a vast range of applications, such as in medicine, electronics, biomaterials and energy production. Nanotechnology offers some of its greatest potential contributions in the precise control of molecular binding events and the transduction of binding phenomena – for example, such as that occurs when two cells in your body are communicating with each other – often through a chemical mediator that physically binds to the surface of the cell, also referred to as signaling.

The Heller lab is committed to employing the potential of nanotechnology for two crucial pursuits: the early detection of cancer, and the innovative treatment of metastatic disease. With a background in materials science, nanotechnology, and biomedical engineering, Daniel and his lab develop different nanomaterials that are able to target metastatic cancer in order to deliver crucial therapies. By collaborating with researchers who are striving to understand the causes of cancer, and with physicians who understand the clinical realities of the disease, we have a great chance to solve real clinical problems and develop therapies that improve patient survival and quality of life.

The Heller lab is also developing nanoscale sensors to detect cancer at its earliest stages. Using novel nanomaterials with unique optical (visual) properties, the lab is improving the ability to detect cancer biomarkers in the body, permitting detection before symptoms arise. In addition, these nanotechnologies allow cancer biologists to measure important biological molecules within live cells, allowing them to ask unprecedented questions and offering new tools to potentially accelerate biomedical research in many areas.
 

Painting life in the lab

Featuring

  • Ross Cagan (Mount Sinai Hospital Developmental & Regenerative Biology Program)
  • Jennifer Toth (Paint & Collage)

Overview

The Cagan Lab uses the fruit fly (scientific name = Drosophila) to model human disease mechanisms and therapeutics, primarily for cancer and also diabetes. Research in the Cagan lab incorporates genetic and drug screening approaches in fruit flies, and uses fruit fly characteristics and/or fruit fly survival as a readout for potential drug targets. By combining Drosophila genetics and medicinal chemistry to develop a new generation of lead compounds that emphasize “balanced polypharmacology” (drug compounds active against multiple disease targets), the Cagan lab has identified novel mechanisms that direct transformed cells into the first steps towards metastasis. Work from the Cagan lab has also helped validate the drug vandetanib as a therapeutic for Medullary Thyroid Carcinoma. Combining these basic research approaches, Dr. Cagan has established the Center for Personalized Cancer Therapeutics, in which new tools including ‘personalized Drosophila avatars’ are developed and used to screen for personalized human drug cocktails.

The Cagan lab uses the fruitfly as an animal in which to replicate DNA sequences of particular cancerous tumors from patients and find drug cocktails that will best target those tumors.  I was fascinated by the idea of eyes as a theme connecting the scientists, their flies, and ultimately my artwork.  The scientists are looking for new solutions, the eyes of the fruit flies are being morphed and distorted by tumors and reversed by drugs, and my vision is yet another layer of looking.  Time in the Cagan lab was spent drawing directly from the artist’s observations of the equipment and people at work. Toth's artwork includes drawings, a small felt tapestry, collages, & a final painting.

The final pieces include images of eyes, of microscopes, of scientists working, and of distortions as if these various forms of seeing are being affected by changing visions.  The final result, incorporates different painting techniques and different materials than the artist would normally use, as an effort to stretch the artistic vision and try new solutions in the spirit of the kind of imaginative investigating happening in the Cagan lab. “I learned so much from my time in the Cagan lab, and saw scientists discovering new solutions with such passion, intelligence, & innovation.”

Bios

Jennifer Toth

Paint & Collage

Jenny Toth is a painter and collage artist living and working in New York City. She received her B.A. from Smith College in Studio Art in 1994, and her M.F.A. from Yale School of Art in 1998. She also spent two years studying at The New York Studio School. She is currently an Associate Professor of Art at Wagner College on Staten Island. Jenny is represented by The George Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA, and Tabla Rasa Gallery in Brooklyn. She was recently a member of SOHO20 Gallery and is currently a member of Blue Mountain Gallery in NYC. In recent years she has spent much of her time living and working in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico where she finds inspiration. Jenny’s work is based in direct observation from life. She explores ways of isolating fragments, dismantling them, and recombining them in disjointed ways.

Ross Cagan

Mount Sinai Hospital
Developmental & Regenerative Biology Program

Cancer has proven a difficult disease to achieve significant long-term advances in patient survival; improvements in survival are often measured in months. Diabetes has not fare much better. Dr. Cagan’s laboratory uses Drosophila (fruit fly) as an experimental model to address disease mechanisms and therapeutics, primarily for cancer and diabetes. Taking advantage of the fly, the Cagan lab uses a whole animal and integrated approach in studying disease: genes and drugs identified in flies are then brought to rodent (such as mouse models) and ultimately to clinical trials in humans; sequencing and histological data from humans are then brought back to our fly models to allow us to develop increasingly sophisticated dipteran (insect) tools.

More specifically, in cancer, their work helped validate the drug, vandetanib, as a therapeutic for Medullary Thyroid Carcinoma; combined Drosophila genetics and medicinal chemistry to develop a new generation of lead compounds that emphasize “balanced polypharmacology”; and identified novel mechanisms that direct transformed (cancerous) cells into the first steps towards metastasis. Regarding diabetes, his laboratory has identified mechanisms that direct diabetic cardiomyopathy and nephropathy as well as a new network through which diabetic patients are at heightened risk for aggressive tumors.

Dr. Cagan along with colleagues at Mt. Sinai has established the Center for Personalized Cancer Therapeutics, which by combining the basic research approaches discussed above aims to create new tools including ‘personalized Drosophila avatars’ that are being developed and used to screen for personalized drug cocktails.

Another fundamental interest of the Cagan laboratory is the basic understanding of epithelial patterning and how does an initially random collection of undifferentiated (naïve, undeveloped) cells mature into a precise and functional organized epithelium? The developing Drosophila eye is an elegant model for studying epithelial patterning and, incidentally, is one of nature’s most beautiful structures. Once the early pattern of photoreceptors are laid down, a progressive stepwise program of recruitment gathers the other 13 cells required to create the core of each unit eye or ‘ommatidium’. Remaining is a ‘sea’ of undifferentiated (naïve, undeveloped) interommatidial precursor cells (IPCs). These IPCs will differentiate (develop) as 2 cells that form an interweaving hexagonal lattice around the ommatidia, and the rest are killed off to tighten the pattern. In order to more clearly understand how such eye patterning is controlled, we have closely examined the role of transmembrane adhesion molecules expressed in IPCs. Adhesion molecules are proteins located on the cell surface involved in binding with other cells or with the extracellular matrix (ECM) between cells. We find that, one adhesion molecule in particular, called Rst, it directs hexagonal pattern in the eye by binding to the transmembrane protein, Hibris (Hbs), on the surface of cells within the neighboring ommatidial cores. These results suggest a model in which the drive to maximize Rst/Hbs binding drives cells into their proper niche and/or pattern. The Cagan lab is currently testing whether simple adhesion is sufficient to direct cells into a hexagonal, honeycomb pattern through experiments and through computer modeling. Implicit in this model is the idea that adhesion, not signal transduction, is paramount.

Using colors as filters to learn about a cell

Featuring

  • Ana Banito (Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Biology & Genetics Program)
  • Rachael Wren (Paint)

Overview

Dr. Banito is interested in the molecular switches that play a role at the intersection of cancer, aging, and cellular senescence. Senescence is a cell cycle arrest program that limits proliferation of damaged cells and is triggered in response to diverse signals such as cell stress often observed in premalignant (pre-cancerous)-lesions and in aged tissues. Senescence is important in restricting tumorigenesis (tumor growth) & in chemotherapy responses. Exosomes (small sacs carrying chemical derived signals) function to mediate inter-cellular communication & have been show to be important in the senescence response, but it is unclear their precise role in cancer, aging, & senescence. Banito’s work aims to explore the role of exosomes and how secreted factors may influence tissue environment & potentially contribute to cancer and aging. Characterizing exosomes secreted by senescent cells will help identify molecules that could mediate senescence-secreted exosome biological activity, understand how this is regulated, and could ultimately lead to improved diagnostic signatures for cancer and other diseases as well as tools to study or treat disease.

This body of work grew out of the time Wren spent in Dr. Ana Banito’s lab looking at cancer cells through a microscope. "I was especially interested in the way that scientists use a different color stain or filter to look at different components of the same cell. The idea that color can reveal distinct aspects of a single item inspired this grouping of nine paintings."

Wren used three different underlying structures and approached each one in three different ways depending on its color – red, green, and blue, the colors she observed in the slides in the lab.  Wren built up the paintings by layering many small brush marks, which echo the fundamental particles that compose all living matter.

Bios

Rachael Wren

Paint

Rachael Wren received a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and an MFA from the University of Washington. Her work has been exhibited at Jeff Bailey Gallery, Geoffrey Young Gallery, The Painting Center, the Weatherspoon Art Museum, and the Fosdick-Nelson Gallery at Alfred University, among many others. Rachael is the recipient of the Julius Hallgarten Prize from the National Academy Museum and an Aljira Fellowship. She has been awarded residencies at Chashama North, the Saltonstall Foundation, the Byrdcliffe Art Colony, the Vermont Studio Center, the Anderson Center, and the Artist House at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. Rachael’s work uses geometry to structure ephemeral atmospheric and natural phenomena. To reproduce the sensation of dense, particulate space, she works with an accumulation of small, repeated brush marks of subtly shifting color.

Ana Banito

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Biology & Genetics Program

Dr. Banito is interested in the interplay between senescence, cancer, and aging. Cellular senescence is a cell cycle arrest program that limits proliferation of damaged cells and can be triggered in response to diverse forms of cellular stress such as oncogene activation, has been observed in premalignant (pre-cancerous)-lesions and in aged tissues, and was shown to restrict tumorigenesis (tumor growth), modulate chemotherapy responses, and exert a primordial role in wound-healing mechanisms and tissue repair. Besides changes in cell cycle regulators, senescent cells express genes that influence the surrounding tissue microenvironment, and secrete a variety of immune modulators and inflammatory cytokines (chemical mediators of immune cell activity and inflammation), collectively referred to as the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP). Tumor and stromal derived SASPs contribute to a unique form of immune surveillance, leading to the clearance of senescent cells in vivo, and restricting tumor growth and development in some cancers such as in liver tumorigenesis. Therefore senescence has important cell-autonomous (internal or intrinsic from/to the cell) and non cell-autonomous (external from/to the cell) functions. However, SASP components can be either directly secreted as soluble proteins (classical secretion) or transported in specialized vesicles (small liquid/chemical carrying sacs) called exosomes, which function to mediate inter-cellular communication in a short or long distance fashion. Little, however, is known about exosome secretion during senescence responses and its biological consequences in vivo are also unknown.

Bonito’s work, in the Lowe lab, is rooted in the hypothesis that exosome secretion from senescent cells, in early premalignant lesions, or during chemotherapy responses may also have tumor suppressive functions. Her work aims to explore the roles of exosome secretion from senescent cells with an increased emphasis on how this process influences the tissue microenvironment – a transition that necessitates an increased emphasis on in vivo senescence animal models. Additionally, a fundamental interest of Bonita’s work is to quantify and characterize exosomes secreted by senescent cells in order to distinguish a signature with potential diagnostic value and to identify molecules that could mediate senescence-secreted exosome biological activity, understand how this is regulated and, ultimately to create tools to inhibit activity.
 

To study molecules that slow the spread of cancer, scientists repeat, repeat, repeat

Featuring

  • Johanna Joyce (Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Cancer Biology & Genetics Program)
  • Sara Morawetz (Multi-Disciplinary Art)

Overview

The Joyce Lab is interested in the critical influence of certain types of non-cancerous cells that exist in tissues in close proximity to cancerous cells on tumor progression and response to cancer therapy. They have found that both non-cancerous stromal cells and immune cells in the tumor tissue environment contribute significantly to both tumor growth and the ability of certain tumor types to travel & grow in other locations throughout the body, a process called metastasis. The Joyce lab studies a specific molecule called Cathepsin S, that is an enzyme peptidase which degrades other proteins. They have found that Cathepsin S is a modulator of site-specific metastasis, regulating breast-to-brain metastasis. Immune cells (macrophages) & tumor cells produce Cathepsin S and only combined depletion in both cells can reduce brain metastasis. Pharmacological (drug based) inhibition of Cathepsin S significantly reduced brain metastasis demonstrating its potential as a drug target for brain cancer and possibly other types of cancer. This type of work has the potential to revolutionize the way cancer is treated because instead of just attacking the tumor itself one can begin to devise ways to also attack key players in the tumor environment that provide critical signals to cancer cells.

To an artist the experience of the lab is at once complex yet clear — foreign yet familiar – an endless series of discrete tasks, transparent in isolation, but that collectively conceal a degree of consequence that only a lifetime of study could truly reveal. The lab itself is an organism, a system in play – things are moved and manipulated, tested and tested again. An endless succession of repeats that both compel and mystify. In this impenetrable system of rigor and repetition nature reveals its abstruse beauty – an unintended emergent entity.

"repeat, repeat" created for Art of Science is a response to the artists observations of the act of research undertaken by Dr. Johanna Joyce and her team at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. repeat, repeat is an acknowledgement of the singular repeated act required of scientific research so often obscured by the vast complexities of a broader investigation. Completed in chalk to signal the re-education process that is implicit in their research, these works are a tribute to the microenvironment and the impact an individual element / action may have on their compositions.
 

Bios

Sara Morawetz

Multi-Disciplinary Art

Sara Morawetz is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work explores intersections between art, science, philosophy and methodology. She graduated from Sydney College of the Arts with a BFA in Photomedia (Honours First Class). She has been the recipient of numerous awards including the Dobell Foundation Scholarship, University of Sydney Honours Scholarship, and the Chancellor Committee Scholarship. Sara also attended the Glasgow School of Art, Scotland as part of an international exchange program. In 2005, she was awarded a Marten Bequest Traveling Scholarship, which she used to undertake an Artist Residency with Red Gate Gallery in Beijing, China (2006) and an Audience Development and Arts Management Program in New York City in 2008. Sara is currently a PhD candidate at Sydney College of the Arts and is supported by an Australian Postgraduate Award Scholarship.

Johanna Joyce

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Cancer Biology & Genetics Program

Cancers develop in complex tissue environments, which they depend upon for sustained growth, invasion into surrounding tissue ultimately leading to metastasis, which is defined by cancer cells spreading throughout the body. The tumor microenvironment is made of many different types of cells including immune cells, fibroblasts, vascular networks, and extracellular matrix, which collectively can be referred to as stromal cells or stroma. The tissue microenvironment, made up of these many different types of stromal cells, has critical modulatory functions in tumor development and metastasis.

The Joyce lab is interested in the critical influence that these non-cancerous stromal cells can have on tumor progression and response to therapy. The lab investigates both positive (growth promoting) and negative (growth blocking) signals provided by the normal tissue stroma to the cancer cells, and how normal cells can be modified by the cancer cells to produce a variety of factors that enhance tumor malignancy. One of the critical regulatory cell types in the microenvironment are a type of immune cell called a macrophage or tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs). And, TAMs have a potent ability to promote tumor progression.

A major current focus of the lab is to understand the mechanisms by which stromal cells regulate the later stages of tumor progression, namely invasion and metastasis. Moreover, emerging evidence indicates that stromal cells are mobilized and activated following anti-cancer therapy, and apparently contribute to a lack of response/ resistance to treatment. The Joyce lab employs a range of complementary approaches to address these questions including mouse models of cancer, 3D co-culture systems, and analysis of patient samples in collaboration with clinical colleagues in order to better understand how the results in the lab corresponds to what is happening in patients. The ultimate goal of Johanna’s lab is to apply this knowledge to the clinic via the development of targeted therapies that disrupt essential tumor-stromal interactions.

Contrasting real-life nanotechnology with the fiction of "Fantastic Voyage"

Proteus-install.jpg

Featuring

  • Daniel Heller (Nanotechnologist, Biomedical Engineer)
  • Shauna Sorensen (Painter)

Overview

Combining materials science, nanotechnology, and biomedical engineering, the Heller lab works on tiny solutions to big problems. The focus of the lab is the development of new types of nanoscale (extremely small!) materials that are designed specifically to solve clinical problems. For example, the lab is developing carbon nanotube-based sensors to detect early-stage cancers, as well as nanoparticles to target drugs to metastatic tumors. Working at the intersection of researchers who are striving to understand the causes of cancer and with physicians who understand the clinical realities of the disease, the Heller lab stands to develop therapies that improve patient survival and quality of life.

Shauna's first reaction to Dr. Daniel Heller’s work with nanotechnology was to equate what he does with pop culture concepts. "One science fiction trope in particular resonated with me because of its pop culture ubiquity, themes of discovery, and, of course, use of miniaturization: The Fantastic Voyage. The Fantastic Voyage is significant in that it makes visible a combat with internal health issues that we are not ordinarily able to see. However, the technology in the film is overly complicated and clumsy, not meant to work in the real world.  Dr. Heller’s work, on the other hand, is an elegant and conceivable version of the fictional weapons used to fix health problems in the film.  Nanotechnology may still seem like science fiction, but it is a much more feasible tool for the detection and treatment of cancer than microscopic laser guns."

"During the Art of Science, I was interested in contrasting the reality of scientific research with the fantasy of exploring the human body at a cellular level, personally destroying each tumor and clot.  The art inspired by Dr. Heller’s work is about exploration and research.  Proteus is meant to be overwhelming, with lots of little details made more complex by the tiny particles of glitter that shift perceptions of shapes and colors, creating a new image each time one moves and investigates."

Bios

Shauna Sorensen

Paint

Shauna Sorensen was born in Syracuse, NY and currently lives in Brooklyn. She is an artist that combines traditional art mediums with nontraditional subject matter and composition. She obtained a BA from Wagner College, where she focused on painting subjects from the natural sciences in constructed or fantastical settings. Her work addresses ideas about history, natural disasters, and violence in a humorous way to question the depiction of history and one’s personal experience with it. She is pursuing an MA degree in modern and contemporary art history at CUNY Hunter College. Her thesis is focused on artist Asger Jorn’s ceramic work. Shauna became involved in Ligo Project through her interest in creating conversation between art and science. She currently works at Open Source Gallery, a Brooklyn arts organization with a focus on socially engaged work and accessibility.

Daniel Heller

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center; Molecular Pharmacology & Chemistry Program

Daniel Heller’s research focus is rooted in Nanotechnology. Nanotechnology can be defined as manipulation of matter and/or molecules with at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometers – so, extremely (!) tiny. Nanotechnology as defined by size is naturally very broad and as such nanotechnology has the potential for a variety applications for research, industrial, and military use. Advances in nanotechnology may be able to create many new materials and devices with a vast range of applications, such as in medicine, electronics, biomaterials and energy production. Nanotechnology offers some of its greatest potential contributions in the precise control of molecular binding events and the transduction of binding phenomena – for example, such as that occurs when two cells in your body are communicating with each other – often through a chemical mediator that physically binds to the surface of the cell, also referred to as signaling.

The Heller lab is committed to employing the potential of nanotechnology for two crucial pursuits: the early detection of cancer, and the innovative treatment of metastatic disease. With a background in materials science, nanotechnology, and biomedical engineering, Daniel and his lab develop different nanomaterials that are able to target metastatic cancer in order to deliver crucial therapies. By collaborating with researchers who are striving to understand the causes of cancer, and with physicians who understand the clinical realities of the disease, we have a great chance to solve real clinical problems and develop therapies that improve patient survival and quality of life.

The Heller lab is also developing nanoscale sensors to detect cancer at its earliest stages. Using novel nanomaterials with unique optical (visual) properties, the lab is improving the ability to detect cancer biomarkers in the body, permitting detection before symptoms arise. In addition, these nanotechnologies allow cancer biologists to measure important biological molecules within live cells, allowing them to ask unprecedented questions and offering new tools to potentially accelerate biomedical research in many areas.