From Molecules to Meaning: How Biosemiotics insight can help us innovate for our changing world
Emanuela Bove, Yogi Hendlin, Noël Theodosiou,
Since its development, applied semiotics has contributed significantly to the commercial domain. It provides an understanding of meaning behind communication and contexts that cannot be achieved with traditional market research methods alone. It takes cold data and makes it warm, connecting dots between what is observable and what is understood. However, current practices of applied semiotics don’t fully integrate all levels of the human experience.
Biosemiotics expands semiotics analysis to include the biological sign systems which underpin and sometimes unconsciously influence the others. It considers how humans interpret meaning through bodily, sensory and ecological cues, as well as cultural ones.
Biosemiotics focuses on the ways living things sense and respond to their environment, even before language or conscious thought. It connects biology with the study of signs and meaning. When applied in practice, this approach has the power to deliver insights that can drive a new level of innovation across sectors, organizations, both corporate and not-for-profit.
In work done to date, biosemiotics insights have suggested how organizations can:
- Design products and services that better address human needs holistically
- Better anticipate responses to experiences by focusing on the instinctual aspects of the human animal
- Achieve greater alignment between sustainability efforts and commercial efforts
This workshop is designed to help participants enrich their current practice, thickening the levels of meaning-making in semiotic analysis, and grounding it closer to how our species experiences and interprets the world.
What you will learn?
• Understand the difference between semiotics and biosemiotics in practical applications
• Recognize multi-scale sign systems: molecular → cellular → sensory → symbolic
• Recognize one’s own body as interpretative instrument
Emanuela Bove
Biosemiotics Researcher – Middlesex University, London
Emanuela is a researcher in biosemiotics whose work examines how organisms identify and misidentify edible matter (food), integrating biological, ecological and cultural dimensions of meaning.
With a background in linguistics, nutrition science and marketing, she explores how meaning-making processes in living systems can inform communication, design and sustainability.
She has presented at international biosemiotics conferences and co-organizes the Signs in Nature Reading Group, fostering dialogue across life and social sciences.
Yogi Hendlin
Environmental Philosopher and Public Health Scientist, Director – Feral Ecologies Lab, Erasmus University, Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Biosemiotics and Advisor – Luminous
Yogi is an environmental philosopher and public health scientist, professor at Erasmus University Rotterdam and researcher at the University of California, San Francisco. Yogi works with Luminous as an independent advisor on biosemiotics.
Yogi serves as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Biosemiotics since 2021, after being awarded the Biosemiotics Achievement Award for best article in the journal. His academic research has appeared in journals such as Annals of Internal Medicine, the British Medical Journal, American Journal of Public Health, Plos Medicine, and the US Centers for Disease Control’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
Yogi’s research is routinely picked up by international media and has appeared in publications such as Time magazine, The Guardian, BBC, and the Associated Press, and a longform interview on biosemiotics for the Essentia Foundation has garnered over 250,000 views.
Noël Theodosiou
Principal & CEO – Luminous
Noël is a strategic advisor to visionary leaders in the life sciences. As Principal and CEO of Luminous, she helps innovators bridge the gap between lab and life, connecting insights and opportunities across healthcare, consumer goods, and technology. Drawing on her global career, Noël challenges conventional models to drive business and consumer impact. She regularly partners with executives to develop category-leading strategies, brands, and narratives. Working with Malcolm Evans, Natasha Delliston, and Yogi Hendlin, Noël and the Luminous team are pioneering the application of biosemiotics, shaping healthcare’s next frontier.