and black. I believe this conceptual model
will motivate specific experiments to gather
the missing information about cancer.
MG: What have you found to admire in this
deadly disease so widely feared by many? How has
this affected your outlook on life in general? How
has it had an impact on your approach to research?
DD: Professionally speaking, admiration is
not the right word in this context for me. To
me, the right word is ‘challenging’. There are
ten distinct biological properties shared by
all types of cancer in varying degree known as
the hallmarks of cancer. There could be variability within and among cancer cells for each
of these properties. We don’t have technologies sensitive enough for understanding the
variability in each of these properties at the
single-cell level. As a scientist, I’m attracted
to solving such a complex and challenging
problem.
where it is natural to sit back and think about
how much your work is contributing to find
a cure for cancer. In my case, with professional and personal motivation, every day in
the morning there is one new idea, or a new
quest that makes me get up from my bed.
MG: What are the primary goals of this collaboration?
DD: The goals of this collaboration are fivefold:
1. Gallery installation: To install the paintings and sculptures created in this project.
This will include write-ups of the emotional
response of all the artists and specific questions from each artist as well as an exploration of complexities of cancer through painting, photography, microscopy and fused-glass
relief sculptures.
2. Publication: To share the findings of
our project with the art-science community,
we will publish our results in peer-reviewed
Personally, it is a different story. I lost my
academic journals.
mother to brain cancer. I have seen cancer as 3. Education of the public through diaI walked to my lab, in patients waiting in the logue about cancer: In general, cancer is
radiation oncology wing, wrapping their bald considered a scary disease. Sometimes, the
heads in pieces of cloth and wrapping their
cancer diagnosis is delayed because of peohands around their loved ones. I have seen
ple’s fear of undergoing diagnostic tests such
cancer as I looked under the microscope, at
as mammograms, colonoscopies, and so on.
the cell lines derived from the patients, to
We would like to create a dialogue between
aid research for person