Metaphors and concepts (3)

Today’s concepts and metaphors are mainly related to cancer’s evolutionary abilities. These ideas relate directly or indirectly to the ways in which cancer can mutate, grow and evade treatment and the ways that these are talked of. This particular selection of ideas is currently not at the heart of my artwork development, but I feel it is important to note them nonetheless.

“Wild Type“

The wild type (WT) is the phenotype that is the typical form of a species as it occurs in nature

“Convergence“

Where nature comes up with the same solution time and time again though through different paths, eg human and octopus eyes, bat and bird wings.

“Plasticity“

Cell plasticity is the ability of cells to change their phenotypes – without genetic mutations – in response to environmental cues. This is one of the ways that cancers can become resistant or intransigent. The other main way is through genetic mutation.

“Resistance“

Cancers that evolve to be able to survive specific drugs. This may happen either though the plasticity of that particular cell type or through the processes of selection.

“Intransigence“

Cancers that resist treatment or are unlikely or impossible to be successfully treated.

“Evolvability“

How likely a cancer is to be able to evolve into different manifestations through plasticity or selection. This concept arrived with me through reading this article, co-authored by many ICR researchers (some of whom I have spoken with) rather than via interviews

“Adaptive Therapy“

Using a range of treatment options to manage the cancer as a chronic condition to maximise quality of life and longevity rather than trying to blitz the cancer with the strongest treatments and risking it becoming more and more resistant and intransigent.

How all this relates to the London Cancer Hub

The LCH is undoubtedly at an early stage of its evolution as a single entity, so I would expect some of these notions to apply, albeit maybe not in the specific ways that they apply to disease. And if I think about my experiences of organisation development I can certainly draw parallels.

Intransigence, for example, is something that I definitely came across at the BBC – or at least it felt that way to me. It seemed that any number of people could make any amount of effort to change things – to reduce staff numbers, say – and yet the organisation would seem to go its own sweet way and somehow, despite reductions and redundancies, there always seemed to be the same number of people working there from year to year and onwards.

Plasticity too has a resonance in this respect – for me it equates to how far an organisation can adapt its ways of working without fundamentally changing its structure or identity (something that might feel more like a mutation).

However, these specific concepts have not captured my creative imagination for some reason in themselves as a basis for artwork, though they are definitely informing my thinking. My next post in this series will, on the other hand, focus on some of the concepts that i have started to investigate creatively.

Researching concepts from cancer ecosystems

One of the initial priorities for my ‘Evolving the Ecosystem’ project was to learn about some of the key ideas and concepts that underpin the study of cancer as an ecosystem. I also want to get to grips with how they might be applied to the work of the teams at the LCH. So my first series of meetings at the LCH have been primarily focused on researchers at the Institute of Cancer Resarch (ICR) who have generously explained the thinking behind their research, sharing ideas and research papers and painstakingly explaining complex biology to a non biologist. First off, I am very grateful to all who met with me from the Biology of Childhood Leukaemia team and from the Centre for Evolution and Cancer teams and who spent time with me on my visits in late September and early October. I am not planning to record the content of each of the conversations here, just to say that they were incredibly illuminating and introduced me to a wealth of ideas around cancer ecosystems.

Darwin’s ‘I think’, mounted outside offices at the ICR

From these discussions I have started to draw out some of the concepts that I think may be useful going forward to inform my artwork. Scattered through future posts I will be sharing selections of the concepts and metaphors I am encountering, with my interpretation of their meaning in the context of cancer, in the context of organisation, or better still, both. I would emphasise here, though, that all the interpretations I am sharing are mine. They may be drawn from conversations with researchers and others but if they are full of errors or misunderstandings, those are entirely my own responsibility.

The London Cancer Hub

I am truly thrilled to have been awarded an artist residency with the London Cancer Hub. The London Cancer Hub is the collective name for the new site in Sutton which brings together a number of leading organisations in cancer research, such as the Institute of Cancer Research and the Royal Marsden Hospital, along with other key players such as innovative biotech and drug development companies that form part of the Innovation Gateway, and the Harris Academy, a STEM-focused Sutton comprehensive school. The intention is to create a global centre of excellence for cancer innovation.

The residency, part of the Sutton STEAMs Ahead programme and funded by a major Cultural Impact Award, will allow me to spend several months researching and developing new artwork for a project I am calling ‘Evolving the Ecosystem’

I spent my first day at the London Cancer Hub last week, and will be posting regularly about all the things I am learning and how these translate into the prototype artwork I’ll be making as part of the residency. It will be wonderful to share this voyage of discovery with anyone who wants to come along for the ride!