We began the drawing process by undertaking a series of collaborative Drawing Labs focused on mitosis. The intention was for the artist to encourage scientists to use drawing to explore the scope and limits of their knowledge while simultaneously learning about cell division. These group activities reintroduced drawing into scientific practice in a supportive and challenging environment, promoting the refinement and development of ideas within an iterative loop between the artist and the scientists.

In the first session, a short visualisation exercise focusing on imagination and sense withdrawal aimed to turn the attention inwards and to build mental pictures through a kind of 'inverse vision' (Anderson, 2017; Anderson et al., 2015). The results, however, mostly revolved around classical, physical representations (Figure 2A). The second session aimed to increase the group's perception of the processes within mitosis in order to generate a consensus and to move towards producing a connected space-time image of mitosis that the artist could then transform into art. To guide the researchers, the artist asked the group to consider form patterns (or 'omnipresent morphologies'), such as the relationship between monomers and polymers. A recent article describing an intrinsic chirality within the mitotic spindle influenced some drawings (Novak et al., 2018), reflecting a more open, imaginative interpretation of spindle formation (Figure 2B).

Figure 2

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The third session moved further towards a 'processual view' by introducing selected words and theoretical concepts as guides and catalysts for artistic vision. A list of 'mitosis verbs' generated by Wakefield and based on Anderson's previously published Isomorphogenesis approach (Supplementary file 1) was used, alongside a discussion of the works of Goethe, Waddington, Goodwin and Kauffman (von Goethe and Naydler, 1996; Waddington, 1957; Goodwin, 1963; Kauffman, 1996). It also included an introduction to concepts from dynamical systems theory, including the idea of flow systems. The group was invited to think about 'primitive' or archetypal forms, or to imagine a time slice within mitosis, along with the spatial possibilities that arise as each temporal 'snapshot' progresses. The group was also encouraged to think about the differences between mitosis in normal cells and mitosis in cancer cells. The resulting drawings, perhaps not surprisingly, tended to include arrows and additional descriptive words, similar to scientific figures (Figure 2C).

The first three sessions emphasised the difficulties that scientists had in breaking away from traditional, structure-based representations of mitosis, so we searched for analogies that would encourage more dynamic drawing. With choreographic principles and musical analogies as a guide, Anderson introduced the theme of the 'score' into the fourth session. The spatiotemporal interactions between DNA and microtubules during cell division are often described as a 'dance' (Yang and Yu, 2018; Klutstein and Cooper, 2014; Gough, 2011; Stukenberg and Foltz, 2010; Munro, 2007), while in choreography, music or art a score suggests a set of guides or cues that are interpreted by multiple elements (individuals, instruments) through time. Moreover, musical analogies have figured in several attempts to rethink biological ideas, such as the genome as a jazz score, or more general metaphors of life as music (Porta, 2003; Noble, 2008).

Anderson drew a 3D score in time (4D) to be read vertically (height=time) as a template structure for the group and invited them to imagine and draw the elements of mitosis as if a polyphony within the score (Figure 3A,B). It was noted that the score template was similar to a kymograph (a popular way of presenting spatial information over time; Figure 1; Hayward et al., 2014). The score template therefore provided a framework within which participants could explore and draw elements of mitosis to facilitate more exploratory and engaged interactions (Figure 3C–E).

Figure 3

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With this framework in place, Anderson and Wakefield met on four further occasions and created and revised new drawings to advance the image. Their explorations led them away from just drawing morphological 'objects' to creating a more processual image. As Wakefield’s research focuses on how different microtubule-generating pathways contribute to mitotic spindle formation in Drosophila embryos, we initially focused on replacing physical representations of microtubules. This was achieved by incorporating the 'inputs' of these pathways through sculpting the boundaries of the score and providing each microtubule-based input with a different colour. Physical representations of chromosomes were retained, alongside a representation of kinetochores and the forces acting upon them (Figure 4A). The same principles were applied to drawings of mitosis in a human tissue culture cell (Figure 4B), two dysregulated human cells (Figure 4C,D), plant cells and fission yeast (Figure 4E,F).

Figure 4

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At the time of drawing the scores described in Figure 4, it was unclear what the overall sculpted shape related to, besides somehow including a dynamic perspective on the organisation of microtubules. A series of conversations among the whole team helped to define the overall changing shape of the image as being related to the energy inherent in the microtubule system(s) over time. This key reflection allowed the same principle to be applied to the chromosomes. Energy is required to both condense chromosomes at the start of mitosis and to decondense them following segregation, whilst additional input is needed to nucleate microtubules around the chromosomes and, through kinetochores, to assist their alignment. The score was then extended to encompass the entire process of cell division by incorporating the cell cortex (i.e., the forces acting on the cell membrane), where the rounding of the cell prior to mitosis, cytokinesis, and the reshaping of the cell following division, provided a corresponding energy-related shape.

Further, unconventional colours (e.g., purple for microtubules, yellow for chromosomes, and brown for the cell cortex) were chosen to liberate the shapes from preconceived and widely-used nomenclature. Finally, by adding all the shapes together to form an overall outline, a full representation of the total process of cell division was generated (Figure 5).

Figure 5

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To see whether the scores could be recognized as having a relationship to the physical entities, activities and sub-processes of cell division, we sent the drawings to four senior scientists in the field, each with over 25 years of experience. They were asked to describe their thoughts and feelings before being provided with a series of key words and, finally, explanations (see Supplementary file 2 for comments from expert observers, and Supplementary file 3 for a detailed explanation of the drawings). With only the final score (Figure 5) to look at, there was little to orient the experts. However, two asked whether the drawing was a kymograph, with one suggesting that "the purple or yellow represents separating chromosomes or spindle poles".

Providing the experts with initial keywords (kymograph and energy potential) was enough to elicit some very detailed responses that correctly identified the major elements of the pictures. Moreover, once the mitosis scores containing the physical representations of the blue chromosomes were shown, a majority of the experts was able to discern the key and relate the different pictures to various types of mitosis (Supplementary file 2). From these responses, we conclude that our new representation of cell division has value in conveying something of its dynamic nature, in relation to the key activities that contribute to it – at least to those familiar with the central concepts. We therefore believe that it could be a useful communicator of knowledge about processes in a pedagogic context.

One central aim of this project was to explore whether such dynamic representations could be collaboratively created with, and used by, scientists, drawing on their existing knowledge and intuition to generate new, testable hypotheses. Reflections by the researchers on the final score not only suggested analogies with other life processes (Supplementary file 4) but also brought to the fore a number of questions relating to the process of cell division.

For example, what sub-cellular activities outside of microtubules, DNA and the cell cortex are not represented by the current score? How would the shape change when other elements, such as the endomembrane system, are incorporated? Does the narrowing of the shape during metaphase simply reflect missing activities, such as the microtubule poleward flux (the continuous shortening and lengthening of the microtubules that does not affect the shape or size of the spindle, but that causes an energy flow from the centre of the spindle to the poles)? Or does the cell's energetic input into mitosis changes over time? If so, how close is the relationship between microtubule dynamics and mitochondria, the energy providers of the cell? Further, though mitochondria produce ATP, the energy source used for microtubule dynamics is GTP. How is this exchange in energy type accomplished? Where are the proteins that do this, and when do they do this?

These questions are new to the scientist involved in this project, even after 20 years of research and, as such, they provide a rich source of ideas for future experiments. Similarly, new questions are raised for artistic practice; for example, how should we imagine the repetition and variation of countless iterations of cell division? How can we represent time within a 2D framework? And how do we draw cell division as a process within processes, intersecting and interconnecting?

Although the starting point for this project was an attempt to develop better representations of dynamic phenomena, a somewhat unexpected outcome has been the insight gained into the dynamic nature of the research process itself. Drawing shifts the focus from the image as product (an almost inevitable consequence of merely witnessing biological processes through various imaging devices) to the production of the image as an integral part of research. This activity, as described in preceding sections, can contribute to scientific insights and hypotheses. We suspect that these benefits might be even greater with drawing properly integrated into primary research rather than just exploring the representation of already established results. In the words of art historian Michael Podro: "We tend to consider images as subject matter only for visual scrutiny; as external – confronting the mind, as opposed to offering, like language, something in which the mind could participate. The problem for the defenders of images is therefore to show how they could – like language – be internal, open to the mind's participation, part of the mind's own thought and workings" (Podro, 2008).

Furthermore, artists have long drawn inspiration from scientific images, but here we see the artist co-creating images with scientists and thereby influencing the way that both understand the phenomena with which they engage. The process of drawing facilitates a move from reproducing what is seen towards imagining the shape of the biological process being studied (the ever-changing relationship between form and environment). It helps to envision the stages, dynamics and elements of which it is composed, and perhaps even to adopt an internal viewpoint of what it is like to be that phenomenon. The opportunity to explore and develop ideas, and the intellectual decisions about what to include and what to leave out of the image, give drawing its unique value as a way of knowing.

This Feature Article is part of the Philosophy of Biology collection.

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

We thank members of the Wakefield lab for participating and enthusiastically engaging with the project, especially the Drawing Labs. We thank Susanne Lens, Maurizio Gatti, Claire Walczak and Rebecca Heald for critically and imaginatively assessing the mitosis and cell division scores, and for allowing their comments to be published. We also thank David Hay and Chiara Ambrosio for helping us to develop ideas along the way.

1. Received: March 20, 2019
2. Accepted: March 20, 2019
3. Version of Record published: March 27, 2019

© 2019, Anderson et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.