One of the most ingenious examples of artistic reimagination involves a monumental sculpture that was installed 2 y ago in the courtyard of the Royal Academy of Art in London ( 2 ). This sculpture reinterprets Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper —his renowned mural painting executed 527 y ago on the wall of a monastery in Milan.
Leonardo’s The Last Supper ( Fig. 1 ) depicts Jesus’ final meal with his 12 apostles just before his crucifixion. The mural is renowned for Leonardo’s innovative technique of creating a three-dimensional perspective that draws our attention directly to Jesus’ head. In the painting, Leonardo situates Judas, the betrayer, in the fourth seat from the left end of the table, which integrates him among the apostles rather than isolating him as a solitary figure. The composition is deceptively simple, but conveys a powerful narrative.
From Leonardo’s Last Supper to Strachan’s Reimagined First Supper
Fig. 2 A shows an image of the contemporary sculpture that was recently installed in the Royal Academy’s courtyard. This mammoth bronze and goldleaf sculpture—31 feet long and 9 feet tall—was created by the Bahama-born artist, Tavares Strachan. Strachan reimagines Leonardo’s The Last Supper and titles his work The First Supper . Instead of depicting Jesus and his apostles, Strachan assembles a convivial gathering of 12 notable Black activists, artists, and scientists from the past ( 3 , 4 ).
Seated at the center of the table in the manner of Christ is Haile Selassie Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974, who was revered for modernizing his country. Others at the table include Harriet Tubman, a Black freedom fighter known for her leadership in the Underground Railroad that freed more than 100,000 enslaved Black people in the 19th century; Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to the US Congress in 1972; King Tubby, a Jamaican sound engineer and electronic music pioneer; Derek Walcott, a West Indies poet and playwright who received the 1992 Nobel Prize in literature; and Robert Henry Lawrence, the first African American astronaut selected for the US space program ( 2 – 4 ).
The sculptor, Tavares Strachan, places himself away from the table at the extreme left, which may be his way of saying that he is the Judas who does not wish to portray himself as a historical figure.
Fig. 2 B shows an enlarged view, showing the surface of the sculpture painted in black with contrasting gilded details such as the chain on Selassie’s uniform. The dining table is adorned with an array of goblets, wine, bananas, cocoa pods, and other foods consumed by Caribbean and African cultures. It would be fun to eavesdrop on the dinner table conversation of these 12 historical figures who were meeting each other for the first time. How would the poet Derek Walcott respond to the astronaut’s humdrum question: “What were you doing when you heard you had won the Nobel Prize?”
Strachan tells us that his purpose in creating The First Supper is “not to cast aspersions on the whiteness in paintings like Leonardo’s,” but to emphasize the importance of commemorating Black individuals whose stories have shaped our history and culture.
Other Reimagined Last Suppers : From El Greco to Andy Warhol
Like Strachan, hundreds of artists have been captivated by Leonardo’s Last Supper . The Phaidon Press has published a picture book on 115 reimagined paintings of Leonardo’s iconic image, including those of Hans Holbein, Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese, Rubens, El Greco, Goya, Salvador Dali, and Andy Warhol ( 5 ). My favorite of these paintings is the one by El Greco.
Surprisingly, Picasso, who is renowned for his reinterpretation of masterpieces, such as Velasquez’s Las Meninas , Delacroix’s Women of Algiers , and Manet’s Luncheon on the Grass, never painted a reimagined version of Leonardo’s Last Supper . Biblical themes were not Picasso’s cup of tea.
El Greco’s Last Supper ( Fig. 3 A ) painted in 1568, exemplifies his Mannerist style of elongated figures and vivid colors—markedly distinct from Leonardo’s balanced and orderly style. El Greco situates Judas—not among the disciples—but alone dressed in dark green, highlighting his role as the betrayer ( 5 ).
The most futuristic rendition of Leonardo’s Last Supper was created by the Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dali ( Fig. 3 B ). Dali highlights the cosmic nature of the event by placing Jesus in front of a 12-sided dodecahedron, a shape that represents the universe in classical philosophy. His ethereal reimagination is a far cry from Leonardo’s earthy realism. Dali’s Last Supper is on permanent display at The National Gallery of Art in Washington ( 5 ).
The Last Supper by the contemporary German artist Bill Willikens ( Fig. 4 A ) stands in striking contrast to the Last Suppers of El Greco and Salvador Dali. Willikens’ 1976 triptych painting is haunting in its architectural resemblance to the room in Milan where Leonardo painted The Last Supper ( 5 ). Yet, this room is empty—Jesus is no longer there and has apparently ascended to heaven. The Biblical scene is reduced to its core architectural elements of light and space. The painting, which is currently on display at the Kunstmuseum in Bochum, Germany, has generated lively discussions among art critics and philosophers, whose prevailing view is that the stripping away of the religious iconography invites the viewer to contemplate The Last Supper in a more personal and deeper spiritual way.
The next reimagined Last Supper takes us from the spiritual to the secular. This 2001 painting is by one of China’s best known contemporary artists, Zeng Fanzhi ( 6 ). Here, the artist reimagines the disciples as young Chinese men seated around a table, reminiscent of Leonardo’s composition, but with a modern twist ( Fig. 4 B ). All the sitters—with one exception—are wearing red scarves, a symbol of Communism. Judas, who is seated fourth from the left in the traditional Leonardo position, is wearing a yellow necktie, a symbol of capitalism. Rather than eating bread, the subjects dine on watermelon, which Fanzhi associates with Jesus’ flesh and blood—symbolizing mutilation and betrayal ( 7 ). The painting is remarkable in that it merges Renaissance iconography with a Chinese historical context. In 2013, Fanzhi’s Last Supper was sold at Sotheby’s for an amazing $23 million, setting a record for contemporary Asian artwork that still holds to this day ( 7 ).
During the 2 y prior to his death in 1987, Andy Warhol created more than 100 Last Suppers based on Leonardo’s masterpiece, the last of which was a single painting repeated 60 times ( 8 , 9 ). One of the most striking of the 100 works, in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, is a silkscreen of Jesus and the Disciples overlaid with the corporate logos of General Electric and Dove soap ( Fig. 4 C ). This juxtaposition of commercialism with spirituality reflects Warhol’s view that consumer icons have become as powerful and pervasive as religious symbols in contemporary culture.
Francis Bacon’s Reimagination of Velasquez’s Pope Innocent X
The Irish-born British artist Francis Bacon (1909–1992), one of the foremost artists of the 20th century, was a master of reimagination, yet he never reimagined Leonardo’s Last Supper . His most famous reimaged image, the so-called “screaming pope,” was inspired by Diego Velazquez’s life-like portrait of Pope Innocent X, the unscrupulous pope who ironically took the name Innocent ( 10 ). Painted in 1650, Velazquez depicted the pope sitting confidently in his armchair throne ensconced in the papal regalia with crimson cap, crimson cape, and white apron ( Fig. 5 A ). Bacon, who detested authority figures, subverted Velazquez’s pope by placing him on a throne that resembles an electric chair, cordoned off by yellow rails and encased in vertical lines that run up and down the painting like bars of a prison cell ( Fig. 5 B ). Bacon dressed the pope in gaudy, blood-stained clothes and distorted his face with shattered glasses and a screaming mouth.
Bacon designed the screaming pope to shake people out of their traditional ways of thinking, incentivizing them to scream out with new ideas and new ways of thinking—the essence of reimagination. In Bacon’s words: “Great art is always a way of concentrating, reinventing what is called fact..... tearing away the veils that fact acquires through time..... Really good artists tear down those veils.” ( 10 , p. 12).
Reimagination in Biomedical Science
Like great art, great science thrives when scientists tear away the veils of old facts, scream out with new ideas, and become ignited with the creative sparks of reimagination. In the biomedical sciences, reimagination drives innovation by taking existing ideas and endowing them with fresh perspectives and possibilities that didn’t exist before. Table 1 describes six examples of reimagined discoveries in biomedical science, including AlphaFold, GLP-1 for obesity, next-generation sequencing, organoids, drugs for myeloma, and ubiquitination. In each of these discoveries the essence of the original idea remains, but it is interpreted and repurposed in a new and creative way.
Table 1.
Examples of reimagined discoveries in biomedical science
| Reimagined discovery | How existing concepts are reimagined to form new insights and possibilities |
| AlphaFold | Time-consuming and laborious X-ray crystallography and cryo-EM replaced by rapid, highly accurate artificial-intelligence (technology) that determines a protein’s three-dimensional structure—even without a known similar structure |
| GLP-1 for obesity | GLP-1 for lowering blood sugar in diabetes became an obesity therapy when engineered analogues of the original GLP-1 molecule produced potent appetite suppression and weight loss. |
| Next-generation sequencing | Transformed the single-fragment Sanger sequencing into a massively parallel analysis of millions of DNA fragments, decreasing costs and transforming genomics |
| Organoids | Flat two-dimensional cell cultures recast as three-dimensional structures that mimic organ function |
| Drugs for myeloma | Thalidomide, originally developed as a sleeping pill, led to a new class of drugs for multiple myeloma (e.g., lenalidomide and pomalidomide) after its immune-modulating and antiangiogenic properties were found to inhibit growth of cancers |
| Ubiquitination | Cellular process of protein turnover and removal recast as a highly regulated, energy-dependent process where proteins are tagged for destruction by the tiny 76-amino acid protein ubiquitin, which targets them to the proteasome for degradation |
Reinvention in Biomedical Science—A Related Process
In discussions of scientific discoveries, the term reinvention is often used interchangeably with reimagination. But, in my view these two processes of discovery can be distinguished on the basis of their starting point and scope. Reimagination, as discussed above, begins with existing ideas and envisions them in a new way that creates innovative possibilities. Reinvention, in contrast, breaks completely with existing ideas and produces something radically new from the ground up. Table 2 describes six examples of reinvented discoveries in biomedical science. These include reverse transcriptase, gene splicing, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), prions, in vitro fertilization, and Helicobacter as the cause of stomach ulcers. Each of these discoveries led to a new paradigm by forcing scientists to reconceive fundamental assumptions.
Table 2.
Examples of reinvented discoveries in biomedical science
| Reinvented discovery | How new paradigms are formed by breaking with existing ideas |
| Reverse transcriptase | Overturned the one-way central dogma of DNA→RNA→Protein, showing that information can flow from RNA back to DNA, which enabled synthesis of cDNAs that can be ligated into plasmid vectors for use in gene cloning |
| Gene splicing | Changed the definition of a gene from a continuous stretch of DNA to one interrupted by introns, indicating that messenger RNAs must be spliced together to form proteins |
| Induced pluripotent stem cells (IPSCs) | iPSCs fundamentally altered stem cell biology by providing a new way to generate pluripotent cells from adult somatic cells without relying on embryonic stem cells |
| Prions | Introduced the heretical idea that a protein (without nucleic acid) could be infectious by transmitting its abnormal conformation onto normal proteins, causing them to misfold and propagate disease |
| In vitro fertilization | Radically upended reproductive medicine by enabling fertilization and embryo development outside the human body—previously believed to be biologically impossible |
| Helicobacter and stomach ulcers | Identification of the bacteria Helicobacter pylori as a cause of peptic ulcer disease and its cure by eradicating the bacterial infection overturned decades of clinical dogma that ulcers resulted from stress and excess acid |
Reimagination and Reinvention: The Scientific Analogs of Creative Destruction in Economics
Creative destruction, the concept in economics coined by Joseph Schumpeter in 1942, describes the process by which innovations in products and business models reshape economic structures by replacing old ones and creating new ones ( 11 ). Creative destruction is relevant to biomedical research in that reimagination and reinvention are two of the most powerful creative forces that drive the replacement of old scientific ideas with new ones. The reimagined and reinvented discoveries discussed in Tables 1 and 2 opened new fields of biomedical research, many of which have been recognized by Lasker Awards and/or Nobel Prizes.
2026 Lasker Awards: Illustrating the Power of Reimagination and Reinvention
This year’s Lasker Awards illustrate how reimagination and reinvention allow scientists and artists to reveal new ideas and knowledge that lead to new creative possibilities. For a detailed account of the 2026 Lasker Awards, please refer to the Lasker website at www.laskerfoundation.org and to the accompanying articles in this issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A summary of each of the awards appears below.
Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award.
The recipients of this award are Emmanual Mignot (Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA) and Masashi Yanagisawa (University of Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan). The awardees are recognized for their identification of orexin, a brain peptide that maintains wakefulness, and discovery that orexin deficiency causes uncontrolled sleep in narcolepsy – revealing a key insight into the nature of sleep. This work is a classic example of scientific reinvention. The discovery of orexin and its role in the causation of narcolepsy came as a total surprise – like a bolt from the blue – that was not based on any prior knowledge or idea, opening a new field of research on the nature of sleep. Like food and sex, sleep is one of the three foundational pillars of human existence. Several drugs that block orexin receptors have been approved for treatment of insomnia; conversely, a drug that activates orexin receptor-2 for treating narcolepsy is in the late stage of development.
Lasker~DeBakey Clinical Medical Science Award.
The recipients of this award are three scientists from Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. (Tokyo, Japan) – Kunihiro Hattori, Tomoyuki Igawa, and Takehisa Kitazawa. The awardees are recognized for the invention of a bispecific antibody that joins blood clotting Factors IX and X – restoring the deficient Factor VIII activity in hemophilia A and preventing the severe bleeding in this genetic disorder. The vision, creativity, and technical ingenuity of these scientists in developing a Factor VIII-mimetic in the form of a bispecific IgG antibody, called Hemlibra® (emicizumab), is a classic example of scientific reimagination, reframing in a revolutionary way previous approaches for treating hemophilia. Such approaches involved the use of plasma replacement and/or plasma-derived Factor VIII concentrates for which many treated patients developed hepatitis, HIV, and/or neutralizing antibodies to Factor VIII. Moreover, bleeding was poorly controlled. The awardees’ bispecific antibody, the first bispecific IgG approved by the FDA for therapeutic use in 2017, has virtually eliminated the bleeding in hemophilia A patients, even in those with Factor VIII antibodies. Hemlibra® has now been approved in more than 120 countries and has enhanced the quality of life in >30,000 individuals worldwide.
Lasker~Bloomberg Public Service Award.
The recipient of this award is Michael J. Fox (New York, NY), who is recognized for empowering patients’ voices and accelerating research to find improved therapies and a cure for Parkinson’s disease. As a young actor, Fox achieved superstar status for his leading roles in the Back to the Future film trilogy (1985–90) and in the hit NBC sitcom Family Ties (1982–89). In 1990 at age 29, he learned that he had Parkinson’s disease, a diagnosis that he shared with the public in 1998 as a means to dispel the stigma surrounding the disease. In 2000, he launched the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, which has spurred scientists, clinicians, industry leaders, and donors to join patients in the search for therapies with the goal of one day finding a cure for Parkinson’s – an extraordinary example of philanthropic reimagination. More than 1 million people in the United States are living with Parkinson’s. Approximately 1% of adults aged 60 and older have the disease, rising to 3% by age 80. The Michael J. Fox Foundation is the largest nonprofit/private funder of Parkinson’s research in the world, having funded $3 billion in grants to date. Its annual funding exceeds that of the US government. In addition to being the largest funder of Parkinson’s research, the Foundation plays a key role as a core coordinator that helps recruit volunteers for clinical trials.
Acknowledgments
Author contributions
J.L.G. wrote the paper.
Competing interests
The author declares no competing interest.
Footnotes
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
Data, Materials, and Software Availability
There are no data underlying this work.
References
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Associated Data
Data Availability Statement
There are no data underlying this work.