My position on the relationship between science and art can be succinctly expressed in one such statement: science and technology is refreshing the arts. Let me start my essay from one important broad philosophical question: What makes us humans? Humans, according to definition, are not animals. One can call humans bio-social creatures, but what makes us really different from animals? The answer is very simple: humans have something that animals do not. Animals do not have religion, art, science and technology. Shortly speaking, animals do not have culture. But what is human culture? Culture is a non-genetical (some people believe memetical or social) heredity of acquired human knowledge. This leads us to one very important and obvious conclusion that both art and science belong to the same cultural domain. This is the fundamental basis for unity of art and science. Both art and science, as well as religion, are making and maybe even made us humans. By the way, if Darwin’s theory of evolution is correct, then human culture, including art, science and religion, must give humans as a species a strong competitive evolutional advantage. Alternatively, one can logically argue that humans will remain and continue to evolve as humans until they have art, science and religion.

Historically, art, science and religion were in one cultural domain. Moreover, artists and scientists were once combined in one person. Leonardo da Vinci is a classic example (Fig. 1). Some artists are scientists and many scientists try to be artists ? most often when they decide to retire. I personally wanted to be a painter ? I even attended art school in Russia and my drawings were not bad. However, when I told my parents that I wanted to be a professional artist, they reacted very negatively and I was forced to stop my artistic training. The good news is that, finally, I have a chance to talk about art. You can imagine how happy I am. Finally, the dream of my youth is becoming a reality.

But before I explain the realization of my dream, let me formulate another very interesting question: is there any room for art in the everyday, professional life of a scientist? The answer is probably very surprising: there are a lot of art-related activities in a professional scientist’s life. Moreover, I must say that the demand for art in science is growing. Presenting aspects of science through the arts is a growing business. The visual tradition in science is very strong. We as scientists create pictures using microscopes which require a sense of proportion, we put pictures together onto slides and plates for publication and presentation like a work of collage, we draw and use computers to generate schemes to explain our results, and we extensive use sophisticated computer simulation and animation technologies. Sometimes scientists are even directly involved in an art project. For example, I am working with a Canadian artist, Tim Fedak, on an educational cartoon book “Adventure in Bioprinting: How to print kidney?”

Now let me talk about my area of research ? about bioprinting and how bioprinting technology could be used in art. What is bioprinting? Bioprinting is a biomedical application of rapid prototyping technology. What is rapid prototyping? It is an additive manufacturing or layer-by-layer deposition according to pre-determined computer-aided design. Our goal is to print human living organs suitable for clinical transplantation. We have been awarded a prestigious NSF FIBR grant and I was awarded a grant by my university to create the world’s first Bioprinting Research Center. We are making progress and one of our ongoing projects is self-explanatory ? Charleston Bioengineered Kidney Project. In the next decade we plan to print living human kidney. But it is obviously a long term goal. However, we strongly believe that one of the potential, short term markets for bioprinting technology is bioart, or biopainting and biosculpture of living forms that are evolving. Genetically labeled from fluorochromes, living cells or cell aggregates can create patterns by growing in specially designed miniature mini-bioreactors which have “built in” capacity for projecting evolving colorful patterns on a wall or other contrasting medium. It could be a sort of aquarium for living cells and printed living tissue mini-constructs, where one could watch every day how colorful, beautiful, natural biological patterns are emerging and evolving within the setting of one’s own home. Another good example of interaction between science and art in the case of bioprinting is the recent article “Organ Toner” in the “The San Diego Union-Tribune” where the newspaper’s very talented artist, Aaron Steckelberg, created a beautiful and elegantly executed scheme explaining our bioprinting technology (Fig. 2). It is interesting that there is a direct similarity between painting and
bioprinting. Paul Klee said that “to paint well is simply to put the right color in the right place”. To paraphrase the famous artist one can say: “to print human organs well is simply to put the right type of living cells into the right place”. That is exactly what robotic biofabrication using a sophisticated, computer-controlled bioprinter allows us to do. There is only one principal difference: we are operating in 3D space and in this aspect bioprinting is more closely related to 3D painting or sculpturing. In this context “pointillism”, invented by French impressionist Georges-Pierre Seurat, is probably the closest to a bioprinting-technology, style of painting (Figs. 3,4). Another interesting and unexpected
interaction between art and bioprinting technology is Salvador Dali’s surrealistic painting. The famous Dali painting of melting bodies (Fig. 5), that I often use in my talks about bioprinting, is the best possible visual illustration of the concept of tissue fluidity ? a fundamental biophysical principle of directed tissue self-assembly or bioprinting.

If we are able to bioprint all human organs, then by logical extension we will also be able to print an entire human body. What is probably most surprising is that the idea of human printing or engineering of a living human body is not novel. This idea first time came to the human mind at least a thousand years ago. I am talking about Greek mythology. A most famous Greek myth is the story about Pygmalion and Galatea (Fig.6). Shortly, it is love story about how a sculptor fell strongly in love with the sculpture of a young woman (more correctly a virgin) he created. A Goddess, taking pity, transformed his sculpture into a living girl whom he later married. Bioprinting of human bodies some day could transform this beautiful Greek mythology story into reality?.

Finally, what will happen if one day we really are able to printing living humans? What type of questions will we be facing and dealing with? What type of humans? Must they all be the same or different? How different and diverse must a printed human being be? Must they be beautiful or ugly? What is human beauty? Is human beauty just a manifestation of health and a result of Darwinian natural selection, or is it a more complex social and cultural construct like fashion? Is beauty always healthy? Is ugliness always unhealthy and bad? These are of course predominantly social questions, but they are also artistic questions. The art of making children is genetic art ? you select a partner and then wait to see how mother nature recombines the parents’ genes into a child. In the case of human
printing, we will have much more control on the resulting product. In this case, the work of future specialists in human printing will be indistinguishable from the work of an artist or sculptor. In this context, bioprinting is the realization of Pygmalion’s dream and materialization of the Greek myth about Pygmalion and Galatea. Human printing will become part of art using an artificially fabricated human body as a new art media. This will be a dramatic illustration of how art and science may become inextricably integrated. Who knows, maybe against the will of my parents I will finish my life not as a scientist, but rather as an artist or living human sculptor. However, I am not sure that I will see the emergence of this logically predictable, new synthesis of art, science and technology. Moreover, I am not sure that humanity is ready for this, and I am not talking about the technical aspects. Technology is probably not the biggest problem.

    The recent enormous success of the TV series “CSI” with overexposure of dead human bodies, Gunther von Hagens “Anatomy Art” based on using plastinized real dead human bodies (Fig. 7), and the “virtual human cadaver“ posted on the internet and generated during realization of the “Visible Human Project” (Fig. 8) funded by the National Library of Medicine strongly indicates that socially acceptable deconstruction and elimination of religious and cultural taboos associated with the human body is already ongoing. The reconstruction of the human body using bioprinting technology will probably be the next logical, socially acceptable step. Thus, Pygmalion’s dream may one day be a reality thanks to emerging bioprinting technology where art and science will fuse together in a new form of biotechnoart.

I have been thinking about three possible “edutainment” exhibitions (based on creative combination of education with entertainment) which can illustrate art and science interactions, interplay and connections. The first exhibition is “Chimeras in Bioscience and Art” (Fig. 9). Biological chimeras are broadly used in science as research tools. The chimeric humanized animal VEGF antibodies (“Avastin”, Genentech) have been successfully used for treatment of certain forms of cancer. Scientists also created chimeric mice by irradiation and then implantation of genetically labelled cells with fluorescent protein gene from another mouse or human to study the role of circulated stem cells in organ regeneration. Finally, quail chicken chimera or chicken mouse chimeras are used for tracing cells during development. In art, chimeras have a very long history ? almost every human culture has chimeras in their mythologies or fairy tales. Greek mythology is probably the best known and most impressive example of inventing chimeras.

The second exhibition on the topic of art and science relates to the visual presentation of science ”Visual Art in Bioscience”. Basically, the exhibition will be a collection of the most beautiful visual art from the covers of top biological journals such as Nature, Science, Cell, Developmental Biology, Development, Journal of Clinical Investigations, FASEB, Developmental Dynamics, Differentiation, Anatomical Record and so on, as well as the beautiful “Scientific American” style schemes from biological textbooks such as Molecular Biology of Cell, Developmental Biology. Dr. Thomas Trusk in our Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy collects journal cover pictures published by our faculty and posts them on the walls in our departmental molecular imaging facility rooms. This beautiful collection is attracting a lot of attention of visitors and guests, and our scientists are proud about their contributions.

The third exposition could be called “NATEO” ? Natural, Artificial and Tissue Engineered Organs. The first part will be about the natural human body and natural human organs and is more about medical imaging rather than anatomical illustration. It may be anatomy art in the style of von Hagens (Fig. 7) or Alexander Tsiaras (Fig. 10). Companies producing equipment for clinical bioimiaging can fund this part of the exposition. The second part is about artificial organs, implants, prostheses and medical devices such as artificial heart (Fig.11), vascular grafts, hip prostheses and so on which are replacing living human organs. Medical device companies can help to organize this exhibition. It would be the best possible advertisement channel or media for their products. The third part of NATEO will be about living tissue engineered organs. Tissue engineering as a new art media was invented by artist Oron Catts (SynbioticA, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia) and I think he was right about this. If art is something one can show in a museum, then he is right about this. We can add a special section about robotic biofabrication or bioprinting (Fig. 12). This could be potentially very well attended. Exciting “bioedutainmental” exhibitions that can close the gap between science and art and melt them together in creative combination can useful from an educational point of view and exciting for the entertainment industry.

We are thinking about creating a special company BioEdutainment Technologies Inc. (BETI) which can put together such exhibitions. Do not forget that “Anatomy Art” of Dr. Gunther von Hagens was, according to the Guinness Book of Records, one of the most profitable and popular shows of the year. Alexander Tsiaras’s beautiful anatomical painting exhibitions in USA science museums were also very successful.

    In conclusion, it safe to say that Art and Science can and must cooperate for mutual benefit and enhancement of each other, because they are un-separated, integrated, and essential parts of a never-ending creative, cultural, social and technological progress and innovation, which make us human and allow us to further advance as a most sophisticated species on this planet.