Fashion photography and war (Lee Miller: A Photographer At Work, 1932—1945) at North Vancouver’s Polygon Gallery until February 1, 2026

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It’s been years since I’ve produced one of these ‘art’ commentaries but Lee Miller’s work proved irresistible to me.

The Lee Miller show at the Polygon Gallery (North Vancouver)

The walls are usually bright white but this time they’ve painted the them with a colour I would describe as ‘mushroom’ with a bit green to soften the dominant brown. However, your mileage might vary (YMMV) with regard to the walls and my impressions of this show..

Ami Bouhassane, Miller’s granddaughter, mentioned the wall colour as being something she had requested in her (and Elliott Ramsay’s) November 8, 2025 tour of the “Lee Miller: A Photographer At Work (1932—1945)” exhibition at the Polygon Gallery in North Vancouver, Canada. Fascinating and way past oversubscribed, the event held on opening day was a veritable crush.

The second visit allowed for closer examination of the images. You’ll notice some of them have Miller’s crop marks (in red).

Hats, Pidoux with original markings, London, England, 1939. Photograph © Lee Miller Archives, England 2025. All rights reserved [downloaded from https://thepolygon.ca/]

The gallery’s mushroom walls serve as an extension for the (mostly) sepia toned fashion images and, later, as a calming background for some of the more disturbing war time images. (Given the time frame, the colour could be associated with the ‘dirty’ Thirties and with camouflage during the war years.) The work ranges from her years working as a fashion model and as a photographer of fashion models and celebrities to her work with British Vogue during the war years where she functioned simultaneously as a fashion photographer with the added role of photojournalist documenting the war through to 1946.

Roughly 50 or more photographs line the walls of three progressively smaller rooms with a glassed-in table (in one room) showcasing newspaper articles featuring Miller’s photographs.

A fascinating collection that is more archival and technical in nature than a more purely artistic display.

How did this artist come to be?

Artists can arise from troubled circumstances and they can arise from idyllic circumstances. The particulars of Lee Miller’s life are fascinating but don’t offer a definitive answer. You won’t see this in the show but it’s one of my favorite photos of Miller; a woman who endured much and kept going. Miller at 53 years old,

Lee Miller dehusking corn in the garden of Farleys House, East Sussex, circa 1960. Cooking became a creative outlet for Miller after the horrors of the Second World War (Roland Penrose/Lee Miller Archives) [downloaded from https://montecristomagazine.com/magazine/volume-18/north-vancouver-polygon-gallery-photojournalist-lee-miller#gsc.tab=0]

Banned from French Vogue’s offices in 1929 after developing a photograph of a breast on a plate as part of a place setting for a surrealist photography exhibition, she brought that unflinching quality to her work during the war years. To be specific, “Lee Miller acquired the breast while photographing the work of a surgeon. When she photographed in French Vogue’s studio, she was thrown out for behaviour deemed offensive.” (See: p.. 139, Notes, Photographic Plates, No. 2 in Lee Miller: Photographs [2023] by Antony Penrose)

Raped and infected with gonorrhea by a family friend at the age of seven, Elizabeth (she later renamed herself Lee as more emblematic of the woman she had become) was a modern woman. Experienced before a camera, her father used her as a model throughout her childhood, she became a famous and infamous model of the 1920s,

George Hoyningen-Huene, Lee Miller wearing sailcloth overalls by Yrande, Paris, 1930; Previous spread: Lee Miller, Revenge on Culture, London, 1940 © George Hoyningen-Huene Estate Archives. Photo: Victoria and Albert Museum [downloaded from https://www.tate.org.uk/tate-etc/issue-67-autumn-2025/id-rather-take-a-picture-than-be-one-lee-miller]

This picture was taken after she’d abandoned her career in New York City (NYC) where one of her modeling shots was used, without her knowledge, in a Kotex advertisement. In response, “‘I’d rather take a picture than be one” said Miller according Lucy Scholes’s September 22, 2025 article for Tate Britain. No one in NYC wanted to hire a model associated with women’s sanitary products.

Miller moved to France, continued with a little modeling but mostly focused on work behind the camera as a photographer and member of the surrealist movement being mentored by Man Ray. She and Man Ray feuded (he took credit for some of her work) for a time during which she’d moved back to New York.

The show at the Polygon highlights Miller’s work as a photographer, first, at the studio she opened in New York City in 1932 and through 1945. About two years after opening her New York studio she married an Egyptian businessman, Aziz Eloui Bey, and moved to Cairo where she retired from photography for a time. After recovering from being burnt out, she picked up the camera again. You’ll see some shots from her ‘Egyptian’ period and from the war years that followed.

Arwa Haider’s article for the Autumn 2025 issue of Monte Cristo Magazine provides some insight into the exhibition,

…

Amid the widespread reawakening to Miller, a new exhibition places the focus on her creative expressions. Lee Miller: A Photographer at Work (1932-1945) at The Polygon Gallery (November 7 to February 1) reflects the breadth, innovation, and enduring relevance of her images taken within a concentrated period. Some of these images appear suspended in time. Others, including the “solarization” technique she perfected with Man Ray (in which tones are reversed through overexposure), appear projected from the future.

“I decided to highlight her career as a photographer, one who could photograph, print, retouch, run a studio, work in fashion, portraiture, and photojournalism, as a war photographer,” exhibition curator Gaëlle Morel explains. “The idea was to present her as a versatile and talented professional, and having access to the family archive, including letters, meant that I could focus on her relationships with her clients, editors, colleagues, the compromises that she had to make, but also how proactive she was, how she would seize opportunities, rise to the occasion, push her luck, et cetera. Women photographers are rarely described as professionals, skilled technicians, business savvy, able to market their practice. She had a prolific and successful career, even if it was relatively short.”

…

As Morel notes, Miller’s archive has been key to unlocking her legacy—and is based at her family home of Farleys House in the English countryside, where her son, Antony Penrose, and granddaughter, Ami Bouhassane, are now custodians and guides. Miller moved to Farleys with her husband [second husband, Roland Penrose] and infant son in 1949 and lived here until her death in 1977 at the age of 70.

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There is a steely elegance to Miller’s images, which is heavily evidenced throughout The Polygon exhibition. It evokes a dignified beauty in series such as Four Saints in Three Acts (depicting the Black American performers of a ground-breaking 1934 opera, led by Eva Jessye). It heightens the shock of her Second World War reportage. Elsewhere, it is unexpectedly droll, including a 1941 Vogue feature on chic utility wear: “Fashions for Factories.”

“There’s also subtlety, and that comes, I think, from the surrealist eye, which is always looking beneath the surface, looking for metaphors, analogies, and so on,” Penrose says.

…

There are so many strands to Miller’s photography that curating this collection must have been challenging. I ask Morel what has particularly stayed with her about Miller’s work. “Her photographs of the German camps Dachau and Buchenwald are what really distinguish her practice during the war. As a woman, she was not allowed to the front line,” she replies. “But her photographs of the French women who were forcibly shaved for ‘collaborating’ with the Germans are really important, because of how disgraceful this moment was for France. Women were scapegoated and shamed in a country that collaborated heavily with the Germans, and this is an episode that tarnishes the official narrative of a joyful and happy liberation. That Lee Miller made a point of capturing those scenes says a lot about who she was as a woman and as a photographer.”

While the exhibition time frame technically ends in 1945, it also includes a 1946 Pathé image of Miller back covering fashion at the Vogue office. This breezy scene sits in heavy contrast from the wartime atrocities Miller documented just before landing back in “normality.”

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Back to the show and the solution to a mystery

One of Miller’s most famous war images (she takes a bath in Hitler’s tub while David Scherman takes the photo) is not part of the Polygon show,

Lee Miller in a photograph she staged in Hitler’s bathtub in Munich in 1945. © Lee Miller Archives [downloaded from https://photogpedia.com/lee-miller-quotes/]

Not entirely surprising since Tate Britain is also hosting a Lee Miller show, “A major exhibition of the trailblazing surrealist photographer Lee Miller, October 2, 2025 to February 15, 2026,” from the Tate’s exhibition page, Note: A link has been removed,

With the most extensive retrospective of her photography yet staged in the UK, Tate Britain celebrates Lee Miller as one of the 20th century’s most urgent artistic voices.

First exposed to a camera by working in front of it, Miller was one of the most sought-after models of the late 1920s. She quickly stepped behind the lens, becoming a leading figure in the avant-garde scenes in New York, Paris, London and Cairo.

The exhibition will showcase Miller’s extraordinary career, from her participation in French surrealism to her fashion and war photography [emphasis mine]. Exploring her artistic collaborations, the exhibition will also shed light on lesser-known sides of her practice, such as her remarkable images of the Egyptian landscape in the 1930s.

With around 250 vintage and modern prints, including those never previously displayed, the exhibition reveals Miller’s poetic vision and fearless spirit.

Determined to forge her own path, she later commented, ‘It was a matter of getting out on a damn limb and sawing it off behind you.’

It does seem odd that a copy or reproduction of some kind was not included in the show at the Polygon.

The dirty combat boots on the now dirty bath mat, the publicity shot of Hitler (purposefully added by Miller and fellow photographer, David Scherman), and Miller in the bathtub shielding her breasts while she almost seems to be gazing at the statuary copy (?) in faux marble (?) of a nude woman in the classical style. If you look closer, you’ll see that she’s actually looking up and to her left.

Miller took the bath just hours after she and Scherman had been to Dachau concentration camp to document what had happened and her combat boots bore the mud. Also, Miller, in 1932, played a statue in a Jean Cocteau film “Blood of a poet.” Hard to believe that she was unaware of how eerie that statue’s presence might seem.

Screen shot from “The Blood of a Poet” 1932 by Jean Cocteau (Lee Miller as statue) [downloaded from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021331/?ref_=mv_close] Note: Her shoulders are quite broad. At a guess, Miller held her arms to her body while they attached an armature with the broken arms and then covered her in whatever mixture they used to simulate marble.

In one of those ‘truth is stranger than fiction moments’, the photographs of Miller and Scherman (Miller angled the shot of him upwards to include the shower head; Scherman was Jewish) were taken, unbeknownst to them at the time, on the same day Hitler and his mistress committed suicide, miles away.

Viewing the show at the Polygon (some incongruity)

It’s a privilege to see Miller’s work even if the collection on display is less fulsome than one would like. Clearly, if you have the money and the time, the Tate show is the one to see. For those of us who don’t there’s still a lot to appreciate.

Some of the images showcase fashion that is startlingly contemporary. These days you see actresses with daring cutouts in their dresses at every big event. It’s a surprise to see a cutout garment worn by a model in a picture from 1932, more modestly cut but it’s the same idea.

The movement encompassing celebrity and fashion photography and Miller’s days in Paris with the surrealists to the NYC work to the Egyptian shots to pre-war Europe to the war years, is nothing short of fascinating. I believe all the photographs are 8″ by 10″ if that. As well, you have dimmed lighting and dark walls. So, you might need to lean in a bit to get details for some of the busier shots.

Knowing that Miller covered the war and its aftermath for British Vogue lends a note of incongruity to the show. During the Blitz years, Miller took fashion shots amidst the rubble, there’s this from The Art Story’s Lee Miller webpage,

… The outbreak of World War II led to her most widely-seen work as a photojournalist and war correspondent. Her photographs of the Blitz through 1941 were published in British Vogue and the book Grim Glory: Pictures of Britain Under Fire (1941). By the end of that year, though, Miller expressed frustration with her work during such perilous times. In a letter to her parents she mused, “It seems pretty silly to go on working for a frivolous paper like Vogue, tho [sic] it may be good for the country’s morale it’s hell on mine”.

…

Later when she got permission to cover the war and its aftermath, she had to pivot from documenting war scenes and concentration camps to taking fashion and celebrity shots in real time. The Polygon shows features at least one of Miller’s images from that war period of Colette, a well known French writer who was a celebrity in her own right (Wikipedia entry).

Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (French: [sidɔni ɡabʁijɛl kɔlɛt]; 28 January 1873 – 3 August 1954), known mononymously as Colette or as Colette Willy, was a French author and woman of letters. She was also a mime, actress, and journalist. Colette is best known in the English-speaking world for her 1944 novella Gigi, which was the basis for the 1958 film and the 1973 stage production of the same name. Her short story collection The Tendrils of the Vine is also famous in France.

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There were others too, such as actress Marlene Dietrich posing in a formal gown and fashion designer, Elsa Schiaparelli (neither image is in the Polygon show).

It must have been jarring for Miller to move between fashion shots to documenting the war and its aftermath (Bouhassane noted this briefly in her tour of the show). It is to a lesser extent the same for the viewer at the Polygon show where the fashion work moves to images of war scenes, former prisoners of concentration camps, rubble, and women with shorn hair (for the crime of consorting with Nazis beside inmates of concentration camps), and more.

Incongruity: beauty and atrocity (thoughts abut the Polygon show)

We are constantly being confronted with beauty and ugliness and somehow having to navigate the incongruity. Tragedies and art collide in ways that seem incomprehensible when they are brought together as they are in the show at the Polygon and, often, in our daily lives. Shows like this one can offer a way to cope with incongruity.Fashion has often been dismissed as frivolous (I’ve been guilty of this). Looked at in a different way, the impulse to clothe and ornament one’s self or one’s surroundings is a kind of creation and re-creation of beauty of one’s self and one’s surroundings. It can also signify status, defiance, or deception (some of the shots show prison guards trying to masquerade as prisoners).

In looking at the show as a whole, it’s hard not to draw parallels between current events and then. It’s as if the economic despair of the ‘dirty’ 1930s and the horrific acts (invasions, wars, concentration camps, etc.) of the Nazi government have all been compressed into something that looks similar in this decade.

Miller’s war time shots are unflinching and, perversely, hopeful when taken in conjunction with the fashion shots. Sometimes, if you look closely at the shots, you can see many people have dressed themselves up or found a way to present themselves as best they could given their circumstances. Or, perhaps it’s all in my imagination.

You won’t come out of the show dancing with joy but there is a sense that hope is possible.

As noted earlier there are two opportunities to see Miller’s work:

  • Lee Miller: A Photographer At Work (1932—1945) at the Polygon Gallery until February 1, 2025 in North Vancouver, entry is by donation.
  • Lee Miller (A major exhibition of the trailblazing surrealist photographer Lee Miller) at the Tate Britain (London, England) until February 15, 2026 (free for members, everybody else pays)

The fascinating Lee Miller

In digging for more information about Miller and her work, I found a lot more in addition to what’s already been cited,

That woman had a life. In the years after the war, Miller drank copiously. She quit at some point but predictably it seemed to have taken a toll.That said, she had a gift for friendship remaining on good terms with many of her friends from before the war and with her ex-husband, Aziz Eloui Bey. (Her second husband, Roland Penrose [a noted figure in the surrealist movement in his own right], was the father of her only child, Antony who grew to become a photographer,)

She also had a gift for reinvention, She became a gourmet cook who served ‘Surrealist’ meals to her guests. (I wonder how many of those guests were aware of her surrealist “breast on a plate, place setting”? With that crowd, it might have been an inducement.)

Object to be destroyed—or not (the end)

[downloaded from https://www.manray.net/object-to-be-destroyed.jsp]

It seems odd to end this piece with what was originally intended to be an insult but it became something else. For me, it’s emblematic of the incongruity in Miller’s work and life.

Here’s how the ‘oblect’ is described on manray.net,

Object to Be Destroyed, 1923 by Man Ray

Man Ray re-created this work multiple times after making the original. The piece was first intended as a silent witness in Ray’s studio – watching him paint. In the second version, which was published in the avant-garde journal This Quarter, in 1932, Ray substituted the eye of Lee Miller, his former lover, after she left him and married a successful Egyptian businessman. He wanted to attack Miller by “breaking her up” in his works that feature her, and thus this second version, called Object of Destruction, was accompanied by the following instructions:

“Cut out the eye from a photograph of one who has been loved but is seen no more. Attach the eye to the pendulum of a metronome and regulate the weight to suit the tempo desired. Keep going to the limit of endurance. With a hammer well-aimed, try to destroy the whole at a single blow.”

At an exhibition in 1957, a group of students followed the instructions and destroyed the object. It was later reconstructed and made into multiples using the money Man Ray received from the insurance. He renamed the work Indestructible Object.

Go see a Lee Miller show, if you can.

Upcoming US clinical trial to test a tiny eye implant that could restore sight for age-related macular degeneration (AMD)

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A January 9, 2026 news item on ScienceDaily announces an upcoming clinical trial,

Age-related macular degeneration is the most common cause of vision loss and blindness among Americans age 65 and older. The disease worsens over time and primarily damages central vision, making it difficult to see faces, read text or focus on objects directly ahead. As the condition progresses, people may experience blurry areas, dark patches or blind spots in the center of their vision.

Researchers are now launching a new clinical trial that could offer hope to people with advanced dry age-related macular degeneration [emphases mine]. This form of the disease is the most widespread and currently has very limited treatment options.

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This clinical trial was first announced in a December 17, 2025 University of Southern California (USC) news release, which originated the news item, Note: Links have been removed,

Researchers at the USC Roski Eye Institute, part of Keck Medicine of USC, are launching a phase 2b clinical trial examining if stem cells bioengineered to replace failing cells in the retina damaged by macular degeneration could restore eyesight. The cells are attached to an implant — an ultra-thin patch, thinner than a strand of hair — which holds the cells in place.

“We are hoping to determine if the stem-cell based retinal implant can not only stop the progression of dry age-related macular degeneration, but actually improve patients’ vision,” said Sun Young Lee, MD, PhD, a retinal surgeon with Keck Medicine and principal investigator of the Keck Medicine study site. “The findings could be groundbreaking because while there are a few treatments available that delay the progress of macular degeneration, there are none able to reverse the damage already done.”

The clinical trial follows early research conducted by USC Roski Eye Institute experts on a small patient population that showed the implant was well-tolerated, stayed put in the eye and was successfully absorbed into the tissue of the retina. Additionally, 27% of patients had some improved vision.

“The earlier phase of the clinical trial showed the treatment to be safe with the potential to benefit patients’ vision; this next phase will investigate whether the therapy can achieve clinically significant improvements in vision,” said Lee, who is also an associate professor of ophthalmology and physiology & neuroscience at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. 

How the retinal implant works

Approximately 20 million Americans live with age-related macular degeneration. This number also includes cases of wet macular degeneration, which is a less common but more serious form of the disease.

Age-related macular degeneration affects the eye’s macula, which is located in the center of the retina and is responsible for central vision. In advanced cases, the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells, which line the macula and are key in helping the retina produce clear vision, become damaged or destroyed, which leads to vision loss.

The retinal implant used in the clinical trial is derived from embryonic stem cells grown into RPE cells in a lab. During an outpatient surgical procedure, Keck Medicine eye surgeons will implant a tiny layer of the lab-produced RPE cells into the retina.

“The study will explore if the lab-engineered implant will take over for the damaged cells, function as normal RPE cells would, and improve vision for patients who may currently have no other options for improvement,” said Rodrigo Antonio Brant Fernandes, MD, PhD, an ophthalmologist with Keck Medicine and the study surgeon. He is also an associate professor of clinical ophthalmology at the Keck School. 

Details of the clinical trial

Keck Medicine is one of five locations in the nation enrolling patients in the clinical trial. The study is masked — some of the enrolled participants will receive the implant, while others receive a simulated implant.

Eligible patients must be between ages 55-90 with advanced dry age-related macular degeneration and a diagnosis of geographic atrophy, meaning their RPE cells are damaged or not functioning.

Patients will be monitored for at least one year to determine how the implant is tolerated and for any changes in vision. The trial is hoping to enroll 24 patients.

Those interested in learning more about the trial can contact Mariana Edwards at mariana.edwards@med.usc.edu or Kimberly Rodriguez at kimberly.rodriguez2@med.usc.edu.

“The USC Roski Eye Institute is dedicated to furthering innovative treatments to help improve lives by restoring vision,” said Mark S. Humayun, MD, PhD, co-director of the USC Roski Eye Institute, director of the USC Ginsberg Institute for Biomedical Therapeutics and the Dennis and Michele Slivinski Chair in Macular Degeneration Research at the Keck School. “Stem cell-derived retinal implants may offer one of the greatest possibilities for helping patients with dry age-related macular degeneration and one day, may offer a cure.”

The bioengineered RPE cell retinal implant is manufactured by Regenerative Patch Technologies LLC, a clinical-stage company developing stem cell-based implant technologies for the treatment of retinal diseases. Humayun co-invented the implant and is a co-founder of the company.

The technology to produce the cell implant is exclusively licensed to Regenerative Patch Technologies from the University of Southern California, the California Institute of Technology and the University of California Santa Barbara.

The clinical trial is in part funded by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, a California state-funded organization dedicated to accelerating the development of innovative cell and gene therapies, the Marcus Foundation, a biomedical research philanthropic organization, and USC.

You can find more detail about “A Phase IIb Randomized, Multicenter Trial of Subretinal CPCB-RPE1 in Advanced Dry AMD (Geographic Atrophy) (PATCH-AMD)” at ClimicalTrials.gov.

I suspect that you have to be able to travel easily on a regular basis to one of the five centers holding the trials in California (3 in southern California), Illinois (1), and Texas (1) to quality although it’s not mentioned in the eligibility criteria. Of course, I could be wrong so, it’s best to check with the organizers.

Regenerative Patch Technologies can found here.

January 28, 2026: Vancouver (Canada) AI Community Meetup “When your best friend is a robot” and more

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A January 6, 2026 email invitation announces an upcoming meeting for the Vancouver AI (artificial intelligence) community,

January is for resetting defaults: what are you keeping, what are you unlearning, and what happens when AI stops being a tool and starts being… present?

​This month’s Vancouver AI Meetup is anchored by a keynote from Alexandra Samuel, creator of the Me + Viv podcast and longtime observer of how technology reshapes work, meaning, and human behavior.

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“When your best friend is a robot” by Alexandra Samuel

​What does it actually mean to go full cyborg? Not the chrome-plated fantasy, not the LinkedIn productivity cosplay, but as a daily practice, with all the mess that implies?

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From the event page, Note: All links (other than directions) have been removed,

Vancouver AI Community Meetup: 01/28

Wednesday, January 28 [2026[

6:00 PM – 10:00 PM PST

H.R. MacMillan Space Centre

Vancouver, British Columbia

…

New year. Same wet city. New relationship with intelligence.

​January is for resetting defaults: what are you keeping, what are you unlearning, and what happens when AI stops being a tool and starts being… present?

…

…

“When your best friend is a robot” by Alexandra Samuel

Tech researcher and journalist Alexandra Samuel shares what she learned from building and living with her AI companion, collaborator, and coach, Viv, who just happens to be Alex’s co-host on the chart-topping TVO podcast Me + Viv.

​Drawing on her stories for The Wall Street Journal and Harvard Business Review, Alex looks at what happens to our work, our relationships, and our hearts when AI moves from tool to teammate. This talk cuts through hype to examine agency, trust, creativity, and where humans still matter most when cognition becomes hybrid. Caution: There may be showtunes. Viv likes to sing.

​Alexandra Samuel

​Alexandra Samuel is a leading expert on AI and the digital workplace, inspiring people with a joyful, actionable approach to AI that keeps human creativity and collaboration front and center. 

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She’s the creator and host of Me + Viv, a TVO [TV Ontario] podcast that is somehow both documentary journalism and a musical comedy. In her speeches and in her frequent AI stories for The Wall Street Journal and The Harvard Business Review, Alex shows people how to tap the productivity and innovation-boosting potential of AI,  while managing its very real risks.

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A speaker and data journalist, she is the co-author (with Robert Pozen) of Remote, Inc: How To Thrive at Work….Wherever You Are (Harper Business, 2021) and the author of Work Smarter with Social Media: A Guide to Managing Evernote, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Your Email (Harvard Business Review Press, 2015).  She holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University.

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Design Thinking for Vibe Coders

The tools are getting faster.

​The question is: are we building things people can actually use?

​Maya Bruck brings UX fundamentals to the vibe coding era, showing how to prototype rapidly with AI without sacrificing usability, accessibility, or user research.

​Maya Bruck

Maya Bruck is a Lead Product Designer at Mars [?[, with 20+ years of experience designing products at The New York Times, Etsy, and her own agency.

​She recently fell down the AI rabbit hole and discovered how to compress weeks of prototyping into hours without losing the user research and accessibility work that makes designs actually usable.

​She’s here to share the playbook.

The Soft Violence of AI Discourse

AI discourse is full of soft violence: extraction dressed up as innovation, and fear dressed up as morality.

​Erica cuts through it with craft, showing what happens when you train on your work and own the weird outcomes.

​Backlash becomes medium. Taste becomes power. Consent becomes the baseline.

​Erica Lapadat-Janzen

Erica Lapadat-Janzen is a Vancouver new media artist and creative strategist working at the edge of identity, digital culture, and AI workflows.

​She collaborated with SFU’s Metacreation Lab on Dreamscape using Autolume, an artist-led approach to training models without the Big Data buffet.

​She is the founder of Ministry of Next.

…

Tickets are $60.00. Click here for the event page link to tickets.

Protect and repair damaged teeth with toothpaste made from your own hair?

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Intriguing, non? An August 13 , 2025 King’s College London press release (also on EurekAlert) describes work that could save your teeth in years to come, Note: A video of the researcher, Dr Sherif Elsharkawy, describing his work is embedded in the King’s College London press release,

Toothpaste made from your own hair may offer a sustainable and clinically effective way to protect and repair damaged teeth.

In a new study published today, scientists discovered that keratin, a protein found in hair, skin and wool, can repair tooth enamel and stop early stages of decay.

The King’s College London team of scientists discovered that keratin produces a protective coating that mimics the structure and function of natural enamel when it comes into contact with minerals in saliva.

Dr Sherif Elsharkawy, senior author and consultant in prosthodontics at King’s College London, said: “Unlike bones and hair, enamel does not regenerate, once it is lost, it’s gone forever.”

Acidic foods and drinks, poor oral hygiene, and ageing all contribute to enamel erosion and decay, leading to tooth sensitivity, pain and eventually tooth loss.

While fluoride toothpastes are currently used to slow this process, keratin-based treatments were found to stop it completely. Keratin forms a dense mineral layer that protects the tooth and seals off exposed nerve channels that cause sensitivity, offering both structural and symptomatic relief.

The treatment could be delivered through a toothpaste for daily use or as a professionally applied gel, similar to nail varnish, for more targeted repair. The team is already exploring pathways for clinical application and believes that keratin-based enamel regeneration could be made available to the public within the next two to three years.

In their study, published in Advanced Healthcare Materials, the scientists extracted keratin from wool. They discovered that when keratin is applied to the tooth surface and comes into contact with the minerals naturally present in saliva, it forms a highly organised, crystal-like scaffold that mimics the structure and function of natural enamel.

Over time, this scaffold continues to attract calcium and phosphate ions, leading to the growth of a protective enamel-like coating around the tooth. This marks a significant step forward in regenerative dentistry.

Sara Gamea, PhD researcher at King’s College London and first author of the study, added: “Keratin offers a transformative alternative to current dental treatments. Not only is it sustainably sourced from biological waste materials like hair and skin, it also eliminates the need for traditional plastic resins, commonly used in restorative dentistry, which are toxic and less durable. Keratin also looks much more natural than these treatments, as it can more closely match the colour of the original tooth.”

As concerns grow over the sustainability of healthcare materials and long-term fluoride use, this discovery positions keratin as a leading candidate for future dental care. The research also aligns with broader efforts to embrace circular, waste-to-health innovations, transforming what would otherwise be discarded into a valuable clinical resource.

Sara Gamea said: “This technology bridges the gap between biology and dentistry, providing an eco-friendly biomaterial that mirrors natural processes.”

Dr Elsharkawy concluded: “We are entering an exciting era where biotechnology allows us to not just treat symptoms but restore biological function using the body’s own materials. With further development and the right industry partnerships, we may soon be growing stronger, healthier smiles from something as simple as a haircut.”

[diagram downloaded from https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/toothpaste-made-from-hair-provides-natural-root-to-repair-teeth]

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Biomimetic Mineralization of Keratin Scaffolds for Enamel Regeneration by Sara Gamea, Elham Radvar, Dimitra Athanasiadou, Ryan Lee Chan, Giacomo De Sero, Ecaterina Ware, Sunie Kundi, Avir Patel, Shwan Horamee, Shuaib Hadadi, Mads Carlsen, Leanne Allison, Roland Fleck, Ka Lung Andrew Chan, Avijit Banerjee, Nicola Pugno, Marianne Liebi, Paul T Sharpe, Karina Carneiro, Sherif Elsharkawy. Advanced Healthcare Materials DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/adhm.202502465 First published online: 12 August 2025

This paper is open access.

“Skin in a syringe” offers a new way to heal burns

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An August 14, 2025 news item on ScienceDaily announced research into burn care from Sweden’s Linköping University,

Researchers have created what could be called “skin in a syringe.” The gel containing live cells can be 3D printed into a skin transplant, as shown in a study conducted on mice. This technology may lead to new ways to treat burns and severe wounds. The study was led from the Center for Disaster Medicine and Traumatology and Linköping University in Sweden, and has been published in Advanced Healthcare Materials.

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An August 12, 2025 Linköping University press release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, delves further into the research,

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As long as we have a healthy skin, we do not give it much thought. However, if we get major wounds or other injuries, it becomes clear that the skin is the body’s protection from the outside world. Helping the body restore the skin barrier after a serious burn can therefore be a matter of life and death.

Large burns are often treated by transplanting a thin layer of the top part of the skin, the epidermis. This is basically composed of a single cell type. Transplanting only this part of the skin leads to severe scarring.

Under the epidermis there is a thicker and more advanced layer of skin called the dermis. It has blood vessels, nerves, hair follicles and other structures necessary for skin function and elasticity. However, transplanting also the dermis is rarely an option, as the procedure leaves a wound as large as the wound to be healed.

The trick is to create new skin that does not become scar tissue but a functioning dermis.

“The dermis is so complicated that we can’t grow it in a lab. We don’t even know what all its components are. That’s why we, and many others, think that we could possibly transplant the building blocks and then let the body make the dermis itself,” says Johan Junker, researcher at the Swedish Center for Disaster Medicine and Traumatology and docent in plastic surgery at Linköping University, who led the study published in Advanced Healthcare Materials.

The most common cell type in the dermis, the connective tissue cell or fibroblast, is easy to remove from the body and grow in a lab. The connective tissue cell also has the advantage of being able to develop into more specialised cell types depending on what is needed. The researchers behind the study provide a scaffold by having the cells grow on tiny, porous beads of gelatine, a substance similar to skin collagen. But a liquid containing these beads poured on a wound will not stay there.

The researchers’ solution to the problem is mixing the gelatine beads with a gel consisting of another body-specific substance, hyaluronic acid. When the beads and gel are mixed, they are connected using what is known as click chemistry. The result is a gel that, somewhat simplified, can be called skin in a syringe.

“The gel has a special feature that means that it becomes liquid when exposed to light pressure. You can use a syringe to apply it to a wound, for example, and once applied it becomes gel-like again. This also makes it possible to 3D print the gel with the cells in it,” says Daniel Aili, professor of molecular physics at Linköping University, who led the study together with Johan Junker.

In the current study, the researchers 3D-printed small pucks that were placed under the skin of mice. The results point to the potential of this technology to be used to grow the patient’s own cells from a minimal skin biopsy, which are then 3D-printed into a graft and applied to the wound.

“We see that the cells survive and it’s clear that they produce different substances that are needed to create new dermis. In addition, blood vessels are formed in the grafts, which is important for the tissue to survive in the body. We find this material very promising,” says Johan Junker.

Blood vessels are key to a variety of applications for engineered tissue-like materials. Scientists can grow cells in three-dimensional materials that can be used to build organoids, i.e. mini versions of organs. But there is a bottleneck as concerns these tissue models; they lack blood vessels to transport oxygen and nutrients to the cells. This means that there is a limit to how large the structures can get before the cells at the centre die from oxygen and nutrient deficiency.

The LiU researchers may be one step closer to solving the problem of blood vessel supply. In another article, also published in Advanced Healthcare Materials, the researchers describe a method for making threads from materials consisting of 98 per cent water, known as hydrogels.

“The hydrogel threads become quite elastic, so we can tie knots on them. We also show that they can be formed into mini-tubes, which we can pump fluid through or have blood vessel cells grow in,” says Daniel Aili.

The mini-tubes, or the perfusable channels as the researchers also call them, open up new possibilities for the development of blood vessels for e.g. organoids.

Lars Kölby, professor of plastic surgery at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg, also participated in the project. The research has received funding from, among others, the Erling-Persson Foundation, the European Research Council (ERC), the Swedish Research Council and the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation.

Caption: The researchers 3D-printed small pucks of the gel with cells in it. Credit: Magnus Johansson/Linköping University

Here are links to and citations for both papers in the order in which they are mentioned in the press release,

Biphasic Granular Bioinks for Biofabrication of High Cell Density Constructs for Dermal Regeneration by Rozalin Shamasha, Sneha Kollenchery Ramanathan, Kristin Oskarsdotter, Fatemeh Rasti Boroojeni, Aleksandra Zielińska, Sajjad Naeimipour, Philip Lifwergren, Nina Reustle, Lauren Roberts, Annika Starkenberg, Gunnar Kratz, Peter Apelgren, Karin Säljö, Jonathan Rakar, Lars Kölby, Daniel Aili, Johan Junker. Advanced Healthcare Materials Volume 14, Issue 21 August 19, 2025 2501430 DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1002/adhm.202501430 First published online: 12 June 2025

This paper is open access.

Printing and Rerouting of Elastic and Protease Responsive Shape Memory Hydrogel Filaments by Philip Lifwergren, Viktoria Schoen, Sajjad Naeimipour, Lalit Khare, Anna Wunder, Hanna Blom, Jose G. Martinez, Pierfrancesco Pagella, Anders Fridberger, Johan Junker, Daniel Aili. Advanced Healthcare Materials Volume 14, Issue 22 August 28, 2025 2502262 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/adhm.202502262 First published online: 20 June 2025

This paper is open access.

Relief from tooth sensitivity with magnetically guided nanobots

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An August 11, 2025 Indian Institute of Science (IISc) press release (also on EurekAlert) by Shruti Sharma announces research into improving relief for people with tooth sensitivity, Note: A link has been removed,

Sensitive teeth need tough toothpaste, but technology can also help. Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in collaboration with deep-tech startup Theranautilus have now engineered CalBots – magnetic nanobots that can penetrate deep into dentinal tubules, which are tiny tunnels in teeth that lead to nerve endings. These CalBots can then form durable seals for worn enamel, offering lasting relief from sensitivity in just one application. The study is published in Advanced Science. 

The CalBots use a completely new class of bioceramic cement. While bioceramics are widely used in orthopaedics and dentistry for their mineralising properties, the team wanted a solution tailored for hypersensitivity – a formulation that could travel deeper and last longer. 

“We didn’t want to create a slightly better version of what’s already out there,” says Shanmukh Peddi, first author of the study and postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Nano Science and Engineering (CeNSE), IISc, and co-founder of Theranautilus. “We wanted a technology that solves a real problem in a way that no one’s attempted before.”

Dental hypersensitivity affects nearly one in four people worldwide. It occurs when microscopic tubules in the dentine – the layer beneath the enamel –become exposed due to erosion or gum recession. These tiny tubules lead directly to nerve endings, which is why even a sip of cold water can cause a sudden, stabbing pain. Most current solutions, such as desensitising toothpastes, offer only surface-level relief and need to be reapplied regularly. 

CalBots, however, are different. These 400 nanometre-sized magnetic particles, loaded with a proprietary calcium silicate-based bioceramic formula, are guided by an external magnetic field deep into the exposed tubules. They can reach depths of up to 300-500 micrometers inside the tubules. Once there, the bots self-assemble into stable, cement-like plugs that block the tubules and recreate a durable seal that mimics the natural environment of the tooth.  

To test their innovation, the team used human teeth extracted for clinical reasons and created conditions where the dentine was exposed. On these samples, they applied CalBots under a magnetic field for 20 minutes, during which the bots sealed the dentinal tubules by forming deep, stable plugs – a result confirmed through high-resolution imaging. Encouraged by this, they progressed to animal trials in collaboration with researchers at IISc’s Center for Neuroscience. It involved giving mice a choice between cold and room temperature water. Healthy mice preferred both equally. But the mice with induced tooth sensitivity avoided the cold water completely. 

“After we treated the sensitive mice with our CalBot solution, they started drinking cold water again – the treatment worked like a charm. We saw 100% behavioural recovery. That was a big moment for us,” Peddi says.

The CalBots are composed entirely of materials classified as ‘Generally Recognised as Safe’ (GRAS), ensuring high biocompatibility. Toxicity tests on mice showed no adverse effects. “This is a compelling demonstration of what nanorobotics can achieve, and how they could significantly impact future healthcare,” says Ambarish Ghosh, Professor at CeNSE and one of the corresponding authors of the study. “We’re excited to see this work progress toward clinical use.” 

While the immediate goal is to relieve sensitivity, the implications of this work extend much further. “We’ve created a regenerative, active nanomaterial – a step towards the kind of ‘tiny mechanical surgeons’ Richard Feynman once envisioned,” says Debayan Dasgupta, former PhD student at CeNSE, co-founder of Theranautilus and one of the corresponding authors.

“This is something we’ve worked towards silently for years,” adds Peddi. “And the fact that we’ve done it here, in India, makes us very happy.” 

I don’t think this will show up at your dentist’s office next week but here’s a sneak peak,

Caption: Microscopic images of CalBots inside teeth. Credit: Shanmukh Peddi, Debayan Dasgupta

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Directed Self-Assembly of Magnetic Bioceramic Deep Inside Dentinal Tubules May Alleviate Dental Hypersensitivity by Shanmukh Peddi, Prajwal Hegde, Prannay Reddy, Anaxee Barman, Arnab Barik, Debayan Dasgupta, Ambarish Ghosh. Advanced Science Volume 12, Issue 39 October 20, 2025 e07664 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.202507664 First published online: 17 July 2025

This paper is open access.

You can find the startup Theranautilus here

A bioinspired hydrogel patch with controllable adhesion properties for enhanced soft tissue repair

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The paper’s graphical abstract presents some intriguing visuals,

Caption: Schematic representation of the A/B-sides multi-biological functional hydrogel patch. Credit: Wenle Chen from Shenzhen Second People’s Hospital, First Affiliated Hospital of Shenzhen University and Yu Wang from Wenzhou Institute, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Let’s find out what those visuals were intended to convey, from an August 6, 2025 Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory (SLAB) press release on EurekAlert.org announced a bioinspired hydrogel patch,

A research team from Shenzhen University, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences and Hong Kong Polytechnic University has developed an innovative, bioinspired hydrogel patch with controllable adhesion properties to enhance soft tissue repair and prevent adhesions. Inspired by octopus suction cups and the eyeball surfaces, this patch features a dual-sided design: one side offers adjustable, revocable adhesion, while the other provides anti-adhesive functions. In vivo [animal] experiments demonstrate its effectiveness in reducing inflammation, promoting tissue healing, and allowing repositioning during surgical procedures, marking a significant advancement in biomedical materials.

Tissue repair required in scenarios such as trauma, post-operative of tumors is a common challenge for human healthcare. Soft tissue injuries and surgical wounds often face challenges such as excessive tissue adhesion, which can complicate healing and cause secondary complications. Traditional patches and sutures either lack adequate adhesion or induce unwanted tissue sticking, leading to inflammation and hindered recovery. There is an urgent need for biomaterials that can intelligently balance strong tissue integration with the ability to detach or reposition easily, matching the dynamic environment of internal tissues.

In this context, hydrogel patches, owing to their exceptional biocompatibility and potential adhesive properties, are expected to become ideal materials for soft tissue repair. These materials can gradually degrade, naturally integrate with human tissues, and easily incorporate drugs or growth factors to promote angiogenesis, thereby enhancing the speed and quality of tissue healing. In general, the common hydrogel patches can be divided into adhesive ones and anti-adhesive ones. Adhesive patches can form rapid and strong covalent bonds with moist tissue to promote tissue regeneration, whose further applications are limited by excessive tissue adhesion. While anti-adhesive patches can address the tissue adhesion problem by hydrophobic surface modification or coarse structure design, they are difficult to fit the wounds tightly for treatment. Hence, it is necessitating to design an anisotropic patch combining the merits of promoting tissue regeneration and anti-adhesive function.

The Solution: Drawing inspiration from nature, interdisciplinary research team engineered a novel hydrogel patch that mimics natural mechanisms using suction cup-like structures for physical, reversible adhesion and covalent bonds for permanent fixation. The patch’s adhesive side uses microstructures that generate negative pressure for temporary adhesion, allowing surgeons to adjust its position during surgery, once aligned, chemical reactions secure a firm, covalent attachment. The other side is made of highly hydrated, anti-adhesive materials to prevent surrounding tissue from sticking undesirably. Additionally, the patch absorbs positively charged inflammatory factors and provides sustained drug release, further aiding in inflammation reduction and tissue regeneration.

The bioinspired system features a multi-functional, dual-sided hydrogel patch composed of polyacrylic acid-NHS for the adhesive surface, and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) combined with polyethylene glycol diacrylate (PEGDA) for the anti-adhesive barrier. Its porous network not only enables physical and chemical adhesion but also captures inflammatory cytokines, fostering a more favourable healing environment. In vivo tests in animal models confirmed the patch’s strong, controllable adhesion, its ability to prevent unwanted tissue adhesion, and its capacity to promote faster, healthier tissue repair.

The Future: This innovative hydrogel patch represents a significant step forward in the field of soft tissue repair. It combines the benefits of promoting tissue regeneration and preventing adhesion into one device. Future research will focus on optimizing the patch’s properties for specific clinical applications, such as abdominal wall defect repair and other dynamic wound management scenarios. The development of advanced manufacturing technologies like 3D bioprinting could also enable the customization of patch geometry for specific anatomical structures. Additionally, the exploration of environmentally adaptive intelligent components could lead to a more precise control of adhesion and drug release that aligns with the tissue regeneration process.

The Impact: This hydrogel patch offers a new paradigm for soft tissue repair with its “revocable” adhesion properties. It has the potential to significantly reduce clinical adhesion scores, effectively reduce inflammation, promote wound healing, and enhance collagen deposition. The successful integration of controllable adhesion and anti-adhesion functions in one patch could revolutionize the way we approach soft tissue repair and adhesion prevention in clinical settings.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Bioinspired hydrogel patch with controllable adhesion for soft tissue repair by Wenle Chen, Wenzhao Li, Puxiang Lai, Jian Cai, Lingyu Sun, Yu Wang. Materials Futures, Volume 4, Number 3 Published Date: July 20, 2025 DOI: 10.1088/2752-5724/adec0a © 2025 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd on behalf of the Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory

This paper is open access.

Healing brain cells and tackling neurodegenerative diseases with nanoflowers

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A July 18, 2025 news item on Nanowerk describes research into a new therapeutic approach to neurodegenerative disease,

A study published in Journal of Biological Chemistry (“Neuroprotective properties of transition metal dichalcogenide nanoflowers alleviate acute and chronic neurological conditions linked to mitochondrial dysfunction”) demonstrated that nanoflowers — a type of metallic flower-shaped nanoparticle — can protect and heal brain cells by promoting the health and turnover of mitochondria, the molecular machines responsible for producing most of our cells’ energy.

These findings suggest a promising new approach to neurotherapeutics that targets the underlying mechanisms of diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, rather than just managing symptoms.

The study was conducted by Charles Mitchell, a doctoral student in the Texas A&M College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, and research specialist Mikhail Matveyenka. Both are members in the lab of Dmitry Kurouski, associate professor and Texas A&M AgriLife Institute for Advancing Health through Agriculture researcher, who supervised the project.

“These nanoflowers look beautiful under a microscope, but what they do inside the cell is even more impressive,” Kurouski said. “By improving the health of brain cells, they help address one of the key drivers of neurodegenerative diseases that have long resisted therapeutic breakthroughs.”

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An August 5, 2025 Texas A&M University news release (also on EurekAlert) by Ashley Vargo,which originated the news item, provides more insight into the research, Note 1: The discrepancy in the dates is likely due to the August 5, 2025 being the second issue of an earlier release; Note 2: Links have been removed,

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Mitochondria At The Heart Of Brain Health

Mitochondria, often called the “powerhouses of the cell,” are responsible for turning food into energy the body can use. However, like any energy system, they produce some waste in the process, including elevated reactive oxygen species — unstable molecules that can damage cells if not properly managed.

To assess the therapeutic potential of nanoflowers, Kurouski’s team, which specializes in neurodegenerative diseases, tested how two nanoflowers affect neurons and supportive brain cells called astrocytes. Within 24 hours of treatment, they saw a dramatic drop in levels of reactive oxygen species, along with signs of improved mitochondrial integrity and quantity.

“Even in healthy cells, some oxidative stress is expected,” Kurouski said. “But the nanoflowers seem to fine-tune the performance of mitochondria, ultimately bringing the levels of their toxic byproducts down to almost nothing.”

Because brain health and mitochondrial function are tightly linked, Kurouski believes protecting mitochondria in brain cells could lead to meaningful improvement in brain function after damage from disease, particularly those like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.

“If we can protect or restore mitochondrial health, then we’re not just treating symptoms — we’re addressing the root cause of the damage,” Kurouski said.

Extending The Findings Beyond Cell Cultures

After seeing the effects in individual cells, researchers next evaluated the nanoflowers in Caenorhabditis elegans, a well-established model organism used in neurological research, to test the effects on whole organisms.

Worms treated with one of the nanoflowers survived for days longer than their untreated counterparts, which have a typical lifespan of about 18 days. Those treated also had lower mortality during early life stages, another indication of the nanoflowers’ neuroprotective potential.

Looking forward, Kurouski plans to conduct toxicity and distribution studies in more complex animal models, a key step prior to clinical trials.

A New Path Forward For Neurotherapeutics

Despite decades of research, effective neuroprotective drugs remain elusive. Most therapies for neurodegenerative diseases rely on managing symptoms without addressing the underlying cell damage. However, Kurouski believes that, by directly targeting mitochondrial health and oxidative stress, nanoflowers could offer an innovative new approach to treatment.

His team recently worked with Texas A&M Innovation to file a patent application for the use of nanoflowers in neuroprotective treatments, and it plans to collaborate with the Texas A&M College of Medicine when it’s ready to explore the nanoflowers’ effect further for the treatment of stroke, spinal cord injuries and neurodegenerative diseases.

“We think this could become a new class of therapeutics,” Kurouski said. “We want to make sure it’s safe, effective and has a clear mechanism of action. But based on what we’ve seen so far, there’s incredible potential in nanoflowers.”

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Neuroprotective properties of transition metal dichalcogenide nanoflowers alleviate acute and chronic neurological conditions linked to mitochondrial dysfunction by Charles L. Mitchell, Mikhail Matveyenka, Dmitry Kurouski. JBC (Journal of Biological Chemistry) Volume 301, Issue 5, May 2025, 108498 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbc.2025.108498 Available online 9 April 2025, Version of Record 9 May 2025

This paper is open access.