A Nobel art form

Upon winning the 1975 Lasker Award--and the $2,500 check that came with it--for the discovery of hypothalamic hormones, Roger Guillemin did not think about buying equipment for his lab or funding his future research. He thought about art.

The day after collecting his prize money, Guillemin went to the Andre Emmerich Gallery in New York City. "I wanted to put my Lasker Award money towards buying a painting by Helen Frankenthaler," Guillemin says. He walked out of the gallery with a 9 x 5 foot painting, entitled "Island Road," and it hung in his office at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California for the next fifteen years.He's always been interested in fine art. "I used to have water colors and oils and things, but never with any aim except my own enjoyment," Guillemin says of his childhood in Dijon, France. "Later on, when I became a young adult, I sort of forgot all of that in practice, essentially to learn and practice the science I was interested in."Guillemin's work focused on the question of how the brain's hypothalamus regulated cascades of hormones originating in the pituitary gland, which exert strong physiological effects. By 1969, as physiology professor at Baylor College of Medicine, Guillemin had isolated thyrotropin-releasing hormone, showing that the hypothalamus regulated pituitary function via chemical means. Guillemin, in parallel with the independent efforts of Andrew Schally, went on to isolate and identify several other hormones such as endorphins, growth-hormone-releasing hormone, and somatostatin. He shared the 1975 Lasker Award and the 1977 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Schally for their discoveries. Last week, Guillemin was named interim president of the Salk Institute as the organization searches for a permanent head.

Nearly 20 years ago, Guillemin retired from active research to embark on an entirely new endeavor: art. While he had always considered science a creative enterprise, Guillemin says expressing himself artistically afforded him a different brand of freedom. "In science, there is such a thing as the law of gravity, the laws of DNA replication, and so on, whereas in art, there are no laws."Instead of picking up the paintbrush of his youth, Guillemin chose the computers that had aided his scientific career as vehicles for artistic expression.In 1991, after creating several digital drawings, from impressionist landscapes to more abstract, interwoven streaks of color, on an ancient Macintosh 2CX computer, Guillemin took his work to Hand Graphics in Santa Fe. "I liked Roger right away," Michael Costello, owner and operator of the print shop, says. "We had a common interest in the computer as an analog to the brain in terms of how it processes information."

Guillemin continued to use the computer as an artistic tool, creating scores of digital paintings with new software and printing technologies as they developed. He eventually made the acquaintance of master printmaker Jack Duganne, who was working in the Manhattan Beach, California print shop, Nash Editions. "This was the first time I had seen anything done digitally that had the character and spontaneity and brilliance that regular abstract paintings had," Duganne says.Duganne printed hundreds of Guillemin's digital paintings and continues to do so using today's high tech printers at his own print shop, Duganne Ateliers. Duganne, who has worked with thousands of artists, says that Guillemin's use of a mouse, a computer, and simple graphics programs sets him apart in the art world. "I have yet to find an artist that was able to do, with incredibly simple tools, as profound and rich work as Roger," he says. "Nobody has even come close to touching him."Guillemin says that his artistic expression is separate from the scientific discovery that was a hallmark of his career. "None of the images I've generated over the last 10 years or so had anything to do with my science," he says. "These images were all what I call mental images." Still, some of Guillemin's works, such as his "Endorphins" series, betray a scientific experience too rich not to bleed into his artistic imagination.Costello says that Guillemin's artistic strength stems from his respect for the biological functioning of the brain. "I've always felt that [Guillemin] has perhaps a greater grasp of what the function of the mind is, and that comes up in the artwork," he says. "His philosophical basis is a little bit stronger, perhaps because it's based not just on philosophy, but on the actual science of the brain."As for Guillemin, who has shown his digital artwork in nearly a dozen public exhibitions and sold prints in Europe and the US, science remains his defining pursuit. "Fundamentally, I'm a science man," he says, "but the artist part is not for me to define as art. It's for the viewer, the people who look at it. I'm happy to have expressed myself both ways."Images: endorphein vol de nuit (2006), Pojoaque (1998), new endorphins no. 2 (2002). Digital paintings, Roger Guillemin.Bob Grant mail@the-scientist.comLinks within this article:1975 Lasker Award http://www.laskerfoundation.org/awards/library/1975basic.shtmlRoger Guillemin http://www.salk.edu/faculty/faculty_details.php?id=25Helen Frankenthaler http://www.artnet.com/artist/6467/helen-frankenthaler.htmlT. Toma, "The real culprit in Graves disease," The Scientist, July 2002. http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/20548/R. Burgus, et al., "[Molecular structure of the hypothalamic hypophysiotropic TRF factor of ovine origin: mass spectrometry demonstration of the PCA-His-Pro-NH2 sequence]," C R Acad Sci Hebd Seances Acad Sci D, November 1969. http://www.the-scientist.com/pubmed/4983502Andrew Schally http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1977/schally-autobio.htmlK. Grens, "How pharmacogenomics might help addiction treatment," The Scientist, June 2007. http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/53244/Praxis Press, "Growth hormone and CVD," The Scientist, July 2000. http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/19021/R. Burgus, et al., "Primary structure of somatostatin, a hypothalamic peptide that inhibits the secretion of pituitary growth hormone," Proc Natl Acad Sci, March 1973. http://www.the-scientist.com/pubmed/4514982Roger Guillemin http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1977/guillemin-autobio.htmlHand Graphics http://www.handgraphics.com/Nash Editions http://www.nasheditions.com/Duganne Ateliers http://www.duganne.com