The beauty of structure

Lavdas also gives mitochondria as an example of how improved technology changes our view of reality. From the illustration in his university textbook, one had to get the impression that these organelles were scattered here and there in the cell, “because that's what they look like under the electron microscope.” For electron microscopy, however, samples undergo a procedure (“torture”, Lavdas says) that take them quite far from their natural state: they are fixed, dehydrated, and then embedded in plastic - “they go into the oven at 70 degrees, are exposed to osmium ... these cells go through hell!” He laughs. He can take videos of mitochondria in living cells today, “and you can see, they are everywhere! From the edge of the nucleus to the edge of the cell, a network of branching tubes that form and break and form again, there's a dynamic.” The beauty of the mitochondria inspires him, as does that of neural tissue.

Lavdas has experienced something of a revolution in imaging since a cell biology professor at the University of Athens let him work alone at the electron microscope as a 21-year-old undergraduate (which made some people on the faculty feel a bit uncomfortable). “The revolution in the last few decades is about visualizing cells and samples in high enough resolution – not as high as electron microscopy, but high enough –in a state that is much more natural. “ Advances in many fields have contributed to this development, not least immensely increased computer power. Years ago, a whole computer storage drive would not have been enough to hold the data of an experiment like the ones the institute now does every day. In optics, there have also been decisive developments in confocal microscopy, “tomography for cells”, as Lavdas explains: “The sample is optically cut into layers, usually with lasers, which the computer then can reconstruct in 3D; after you mark different proteins with antibodies with different colors, you can turn the cell around and look at it from all sides. Like this, you get a wealth of information about the morphology and the contents of the cell.” If these possibilities had been described to bio-scientists a few decades ago, they would have “seemed like science fiction to most”, Lavdas says. “And all these things are getting better and better; the sensitivity of the detectors is increasing, so you need less intense lasers, which means less damage to the cell.” He has himself worked in a collaborative project between Eurac Research, the Politecnico di Milano, the University of Cambridge and the Bolzano-based company Micro Photon Devices to develop a novel system which uses “FLIM imaging”, a technique that helps us acquire biochemical information from the cells.

But apart from imaging, Alexandros Lavdas is also occupied with another major topic: neuroaesthetics. More specifically, he is researching how our brain perceives shapes, which shapes we find beautiful, and for what reason. In a study with landscape ecologist Uta Schirpke two years ago, he showed that we are particularly attracted to forms with certain types of organized complexity, forms that have been proven to have a positive effect on our well-being. This applies to landscapes (the subject of his most recent paper with Schirpke and Erich Tasser) as well as to architecture – a field in which Lavdas is particularly interested since buildings are among his favorite photographic subjects. His most recent papers are about developing quantitative tools for measuring the appeal and effect of buildings on humans. Since last year, he has also been a member of the board of directors of the Human Architecture and Planning Institute, an organization in the US dedicated to understanding the human experience of the built environment. Alexandros Lavdas is quite literally dealing with the shape of things to come.