Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Cell Tower

Narration: The first time Don Ingber saw ?Needle Tower? the monumental sculpture by Kenneth Snelson, it was almost 30 years ago.

Don: ... it?s like, kind of like an old friend...

Narration: Don was just 20 years old - a molecular biophysics and biochemistry major at Yale - he was already quite accomplished in his studies - and he was dating a girl who was studying to be a sculptor. She took him to the gardens at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington DC to see ?Needle Tower.? She just knew Don would love it. Like girlfriends often are, she was right - he was completely transfixed.

Don: it?s so elegant ? it is weightless - it?s just incredible?

Narration: Needle Tower - like a lot of Kenneth Snleson?s work - is made of enormous aluminum struts suspended with high-tension cable. They seem to defy gravity. Near the bottom the struts are huge - and as they move up and up, they get smaller and smaller.

Don: And this is sort of like some antenna to another civilization on another planet, that?s what it feels like. I remember walking under here and looking up - which is really an incredible sight ? it?s sort of - many stars ? almost Jewish stars ? over one another getting smaller and smaller ? for what must be 60 or 80 feet. You know when you look at it this close, you don?t even notice the steel girders don?t touch. The girders are just standing free ? they are just held by these little tension cables ? and this is so strong ? it?s so steady.

Narration: And he thought ? that?s how nature builds.

Don believes that living cells are built just like a Kenneth Snelson sculpture - except the struts and strings - the cell?s scaffolding - is made of proteins inside the cell. And he believes that the same mechanical forces that hold a Snelson sculpture together, hold our cells together. He says it?s what gives cells their ability to change shape, move and grow.

It all comes down to one word...

Don: Tensegrity!

Narration: Tensegrity?

Don: It?s coined from the terms tensional and integrity. This structure get stability because there?s tension going through all the cables ? pulling inward to the center ? but these struts resist being compressed and therefore put the whole structure being in a state of isometric tension ...

Narration: Back at Yale, Don wanted to take a three-dimensional design course, but it was really hard to get into art classes, if you weren?t an art major, so Don?s girlfriend, the sculptor, introduced him to professor, Erwin Hauer.

Don: and he says, ?Vy do you want to take my course?? And I said, because at the molecular level everything is three-dimensional design. And he says, ?Vat do you mean?? I said, if you look at viruses they all look like different geodesic domes. He said, ?you in my course? and I went on. And he said, ?you in my course - just come Monday.?

Narration: During one class, Hauer pulled out a tensegrity sculpture that he?d built. It was ball made with just six sticks, that didn?t touch, but were held together with elastic strings...

Don: he would put his hand on it and he would press on it and it would flatten against the table ... and when he would let go, it would bounce off the table... (nice sounds of this model bouncing on tabletop) That?s exactly what cells do ? it was literally a couple of days before ... first time in my life, I cultured cells and ... cells in the body, they have a very particular shape ? flat-like-pancakes in skin or they can be elongated like a column called columnar in your intestine ... but when you take them off their normal anchorage in the body ? they round up and they all become spherical. So I just said, ?oh, cell?s must use tensegrity to organize themselves.?

Narration: In the mid-70s, this was heresy. Most scientists still thought a cell was just an elastic membrane surrounding a viscous, goopy cytoplasm.

Don: and I started building models and showing people that ? literally cells may change their shape -- and that could change their internal shape ? the shape of their cytoskeleton - this framework inside the cell. And that that could somehow change biochemistry.

Narration: And when Don saw the sculpture move, he saw how information could transfer through the body by mechanics rather than by a cascade of chemical reactions.

Don: you?re not supposed to touch these things, but I do remember hitting one of these cables. (clang, clang) Look at the top ? see it oscillate ? it?s incredible ? it just ? so, that to me is information transfer over long distances.

Narration: The first time Don presented his work on tensegrity was at the Gordon conference in New Hampshire ? these are very prestigious, small scientific meetings.

Don: And one guy I?ll never forget, his eyes were rolling back in his head like he was a wild horse ? he was telling me, ?this, this, this is crazy ? you?re wasting our time ? it?s not mechanical, it?s all chemical, we know it?s chemical.? I said, ?Well, it?s mediated by chemical, but the stimulus is physical.? And he said, ?no, no, no? and went on and on. To this day, I have people that attack the idea.

Narration: But scientists are finding that many diseases result from abnormal tissue mechanics - how forces are transmitted or how cells respond to forces ? just like Don?s theory might predict.

Don:.so in the lung diseases like asthma, there?s too much stiffness or contractility of the air ways. In emphysema, you loose the mechanical stability of the air sacks. In cartilage, it?s the ability to resist load, that you basically have breakdown over time.

Narration: And in his lab, Don discovered a drug that looks promising for the treatment of human cancer ? work influenced by his understanding of tensegrity.

Lu: you know what I noticed, that?s kind of remarkable to me? You cannot take your eyes off of it...

Don: I: I am kinda linked into it, arent I? even though this is so abstract, it does get a second look from people. They don?t know what to do with it, but beneath it all, it really is like the secret of the universe.

Don: And here?s my last bang. Good-bye sculpture... (THWACK) Wow! It really bent up at the top ? a little whiplash. Alright. it?s was fun...

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