Scientific reductionism, the almost universal strategy to remove complexity from systems, to break them down into smaller, simpler parts so we can understand how they function, has simultaneously served and limited discovery. Reductionism creates a false sense of understanding, false sense of control.

In conventional cell and tissue culture labs, the use of antibiotics (Greek for “against-life”) ensures that cultures contain only a single cell type. Plastic culture vessels create well-defined geometries and surface chemistries. Formulations of sugars, salts, amino acids, vitamins, and all manner of obscure molecules bathe monocultures. But these ultimately resemble nothing in the natural world. In effect, we create semi-living, non-self-sustaining goo with defining characteristics that serve science rather than life. In this condition, the glorious purity of this mass of active matter possesses the same monotony of the cold and lifeless stainless-steel walls of the incubator—a sterile incubator now contaminated with the organisms we deem interesting for study.

During training to become a scientist, one grows familiar with conventions and scientific protocols, and it becomes easy to believe that they replicate wild biology, yet lab conditions have very little to do with real life and all its unexpected, whimsical behaviors. The problem is that the more control we exert on living things, the more artificial they become. Lab data and observations tell us very little about biology in actual bodies and environments.

When I was a graduate student, a senior scientist raised this exact concern while I was presenting onstage at a large international biomedical conference. He asked, “How can your experiments conducted in petri dishes possibly have anything to do with what happens in an actual human body?” I have no idea how I responded, but I definitely remember the sweat stains.

It wasn’t until years later that I began to wonder why seasoned scientists viewed in vitro results with skepticism. Simultaneously, I became fascinated that cells—evolved for bodies but imprisoned in the absurd landscapes of plastic culture dishes—could survive at all, moving, growing, metabolizing, and differentiating in terra incognita.

This small shift in perspective became the foundation for my biological research. Once one decides to test the limits of the artificial conditions under which a cell can thrive, scientific opportunities arise. Questioning the dogma of cellular purity, however, has become a slippery slope.

Scientific protocol specifies that growing animal tissues requires specialized plastic flasks and dishes. That’s at least what we teach our students. For me, questioning that one small convention created an existential crisis that would shake decades of training. We assume that science’s protocols and procedures are built on a bedrock of solid evidence. What if some portion of that foundation is purely convention? What if we perform our experiments in a particular way because that’s just the way it’s always been done?

Over a decade ago, my team and I developed protocols to cultivate mammalian cells on LEGO blocks. The immediate goal was an irreverent poke at scientific convention. While many people aim to grow their cells on scientifically approved dishware, we showed that we could grow our cells on an equally absurd form of plastic—children’s toys. I found myself cultivating living sheets of mammalian cells on LEGO blocks, LEGO furniture, and yes, LEGO figurines.