“Leonardo da Vinci: the faces of the genius,” an exhibition curated by our esteemed colleague in the Leonardo DNA Project, Christian Galvez, opens in Madrid on 30 November. Team members Jose Lorente and Karina Aberg will participate. The exhibition includes a section about our search for his DNA.
The passing on 30 September 2018 in Washington DC of Jeannette Aspden, colleague from IIASA and the Carnegie Commission, elicits a brief written tribute. Celebrations and remembrances of our colleagues have accumulated over the years, and we re-post them here.
Vera Alexander (Remembrance 2023)
Jeannette Aspden (Remembrance 2018)
Robert Herman (In Memory of Robert Herman, 1997)
Robert Kates (The Classification of Robert Kates, 2018)
Alexander Keynan (The Germination of Alexander Keynan, in memoriam, 2013)
Janusz Kindler (Remembrance, 2021)
Joshua Lederberg (In memoriam, 2008)
Joshua Lederberg (A Tribute to the Foresight of Joshua Lederberg, 2009)
Thomas F. Malone (Tom Malone here [poem], 1984)
Andrew W. Marshall, Andrew Marshall and Classics (remembrance, 2019)
Rodney Nichols (2018)
William A. Nierenberg (Memorial Tribute, 2000)
William D. Nordhaus (Getting to know Bill Nordhaus and Climate, 2019)
Fan and Don Ogilvie (“It was fruit“, poem celebrating our friendship)
Arthur L. Singer, Jr. (Old Friends, A Remembrance, 2020)
Chauncey Starr (A 90th Birthday Tribute, 2002)
Oleg F. Vasiliev, 1925-2017 (scroll to second entry past Beck tribute)
Paul E. Waggoner (Thriving Thrift: On the Occasion of Paul Waggoner Appreciation Day, 2013)
Robert M. White (Portrait of Robert M. White in the style of Gertrude Stein, 1979)
Norton Zinder (A Remembrance of Norton Zinder, 2012)
Census of Marine Life, for a personal view of the program, read Jesse’s poem, The Census of Marine Life is about the total richness of the sea, the foreword to Life in the World’s Oceans: Diversity, Distribution, and Abundance, A. McIntyre (ed.), Wiley-Blackwell, 2010
The Leonardo Da Vinci DNA Project:
Exploring the Intersections of Science and Art
Click on the title to see the lecture in YouTube
Featuring:
Jesse Ausubel, Karina Åberg, and Thomas P. Sakmar
Monday, February 12, 2018
6:00–7:15 p.m.Caspary Auditorium
The Rockefeller University
1230 York Avenue at East 66th Street New York, NY 10065
DNA sequencing has revolutionized the study of human genetic variation, and insights derived from DNA now matter in diverse settings – from hospitals to courtrooms. Scientists are now also exploring information that DNA might yield about cultural heritage. For example, what can it reveal about works of art and their creators?
Leonardo da Vinci is widely recognized as one of the most extraordinary figures in human history. Leading up to the 500th anniversary of his death in 2019, an international team –– including anthropologists, artists, art historians, forensic experts, genealogists, microbiologists, physicians, and population geneticists –– has assembled to uncover new facts and insights about Leonardo. One of the ambitious goals of the team is to use pioneering methods to obtain traces of DNA attributable to Leonardo from artworks, notebooks or other sources.
On Monday, February 12, three members of The Leonardo DNA Project team – Jesse Ausubel, Karina Åberg, and Thomas P. Sakmar – will describe the origins of this remarkable project, provide a progress report on their research, and reflect on how this scientific inquiry may contribute to art history and conservation, while uncovering new information about Leonardo’s life, ancestry and exceptional abilities.
Jesse Ausubel, Director of the Program for the Human Environment at The Rockefeller University, has helped design and conduct major international research programs, including the Census of Marine Life, Barcode of Life initiative, and Encyclopedia of Life. His lab is now using very short sequences of loose DNA found in seawater to assess the status of marine life. He initiated The Leonardo DNA Project in 2014.
Karina Åberg is a visual artist with a longstanding special interest in the application of digital technology to education. Her unique skill set and enthusiasm about digital media and technology have facilitated her innovative contributions to digital design, advertising, communications and teaching. Her early training in Renaissance art techniques has led to several advances as a member of The Leonardo DNA Project since 2015.
Thomas P. Sakmar is a physician-scientist and the Richard M. & Isabel P. Furlaud Professor at The Rockefeller University, where he heads the Laboratory of Chemical Biology and Signal Transduction. His research program is dedicated to chemical biology and drug discovery research. His interest in visual sensory perception and the origins of creativity in science and the arts have led to his involvement in The Leonardo DNA Project since 2014.
During the winter-spring of 2017, Mande Holford, Rod Nichols, and Jesse Ausubel organized a seminar series for the 5th year in a row on Science & Diplomacy. Participants May Dobosiewicz and Kimberly Siletti have posted a short essay about the series titled The Many Faces of Science Diplomacy.
Leonardo DNA Project in the news
The Leonardo DNA Project features on pages 49 and 54-55 of Claudia Kalb’s article about genius in the May 2017 issue of National Geographic magazine.
Elga Daifa published on article about the Leonardo DNA Project in the Greek edition of People magazine: https://www.peoplegreece.com/article/spazontas-ton-kodika-tou-dna-tou-leonardo-da-vinci-nees-apokalipsis-gia-ton-efevreti-ke-zografo-enigma/
Sarah Cascone writes about the project in ArtNet news
Cracking the Real da Vinci Code: Meet the Scientist Who Is Mapping Leonardo’s DNA
Sam Munson published an interview with Jesse Ausubel about the Leonardo DNA Project in the Octavian Report: https://octavianreport.com/article/jesse-ausubel-leonardo-genome/
And an article in Art News Ukraine ?????? ?????????? «??? ?? ?????» ? ??????? ??? ??? ???????–Aug 17, 2017
In 2014, Di Renzo published in Italian Jesse Ausubel’s autobiography La liberazione dell’ambiente (autobiography) 112 pp. We now post an English translation as The Liberation of the Environment. The autobiography (48 pages in English) should not be confused with the short essay also titled Liberation of the Environment which opens the 1996 Daedalus special issue on environment and 1997 NAE book Technological Trajectories and the Human Environment.
On the 25th anniversary of publication, we post Jesse Ausubel’s 1992 essay “Intellectual Migrations and Global Universities,” which accurately foresaw saturation of domestic markets leading to aggressive globalization of USA universities.
During 1996, on behalf of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Jesse Ausubel helped Prof. Thomas Bailey establish the Community College Research Center at Teachers College. The influential center celebrated its 20th anniversary on 17 November 2016 with a symposium highlighted by a talk by Dr. Jill Biden, 2nd Lady of the USA and professor at Northern Virginia Community College. For Jesse’s role, please watch minutes 10 to 18 of this video:
https://livestream.com/teacherscollegecolumbiauniversity/CCRC20
Below are TC President Susan Fuhrman, Prof. Bailey, Prof. Biden, Anne Ausubel (who worked at TC during the late 1960s and early 1970s), and Jesse Ausubel.
Team members of the project “Using New Anthropological and Biological Tools to Learn about Leonardo da Vinci” with seed money from the Richard Lounsbery Foundation met 2-3 May in Florence, Italy, and have issued a press release about the publication of a set of papers from the project in Human Evolution. Jesse Ausubel mediated the opening seminar on 2 May sponsored by Eugenio Giani, President of the Regional Council of Tuscany. Jesse’s introductory essay is here. The press release earned wide attention, for example,
BBC radio:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03tb7ht
Gizmodo, USA
The Brilliantly Insane Plan to Reconstruct Leonardo da Vinci’s Genome
https://gizmodo.com/the-brilliantly-insane-plan-to-reconstruct-leonardo-da-1774873148
Daily Telegraph, UK
Leonardo da Vinci paintings analysed for DNA to solve grave mystery
La Repubblica –
Agencia EFE, Spain (Spanish)
INVESTIGADORES QUIEREN EL ADN DE LEONARDO DA VINCI PARA RECONSTRUIR AL GENIO (RESEARCHERS WANT THE DNA OF LEONARDO DA VINCI TO REBUILD THE GENIUS)