StemCell Therapy

Whether working in bronze, paint, or living cells, bioengineer Stephen Redenti takes the search for truth, beauty--and vision--seriously.

Stephen Redenti is an assistant professor of molecular, cell, and developmental biology at the City University of New York whose lab does cutting-edge work in stem-cell engineering with the aim of helping blind people see. He spent his post-collegiate years as a struggling artist--casting bronze crucifixion sculptures, painting sea life, and caring for lab pigeons--typical, eclectic, young adult stuff. Difference is, Redenti parlayed the ideas and skills he picked up during his wilderness years into a tool kit he still uses to actualize his vision of ... giving others vision.

FAST COMPANY: Youve had a pretty roundabout path to stem-cell engineering.

STEPHEN REDENTI: I got a B.A. from a state college in Connecticut. I spent too many years and graduated with a double major in sculpture and biopsychology. After graduation, I lived in New Haven and apprenticed with a neoclassical sculptor, John Saunders, and was a research assistant in a pigeon behavioral lab. My days were split between the lab and sculpture. When I was 26 and 27 I thought that was exciting --but neither really helped me pay the rent.

Serendipitous events led me to working with Saunders. His girlfriend was in a class with me. We met and we liked the same music, and he offered me an apprenticeship. Hes probably the best neoclassical sculptor Ive ever met. He worked in bronze, doing lost-wax casting--at the time, he was building crucifixion scenes for monasteries throughout the world, and some commissions. Now hes the director of monument preservation in New York City.

At that age I was just pursuing what was genuinely interesting to me. My sculpture was informed by my research in behavioral neuroscience. The same question existed in neuroscience as existed in sculpture--the basic question is, what is the nature of mind? I think I was asking more metaphysical questions when I was younger--luckily we stopped that! But there was always this overlapping of evolutionary theory and theory of the mind, and tying that into the aesthetics of sculpture. Somehow or other, it was all manifested in the physical structure of the body and the brain.

Thats pretty heady stuff. Were you reading things that helped you make those connections?

I was influenced by E.O. Wilson--hes the father of social biology. I also liked Stephen Jay Gould. I was also reading Deleuze and Guattari, the heavy, conceptual-heavy reading you have to do as an art student. And Nietzsche and Freud. You find a lot of parallels when youre a student and youre bouncing between classroom and studio art everyday. To me there were more parallels than differences at that point.

So how did you get interested in the science of vision and decide to focus more on that side of your career?

The rest is here:
A Struggling Artist's Fall-Back Career: Curing Blindness

This entry was posted on June 18, 2012 at 2:19 pm and is filed under Blindness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |