Interdisciplinary Research
Over the past ten years, researchers at the Molecular Sciences
Institute (MSI) have been creating a functional interdisciplinary
genomic research environment. Much of what we have learned
about conducting interdisciplinary research we gained while
pursuing the Alpha project. The Alpha Project aims to predict
the quantitative behavior of the alpha pheromone signal transduction
pathway in the budding yeast S.cerevisiae. To do
this work we have needed to couple ongoing experimentation
and the development of new experimental methods with development
of computational and other formal (i.e, mathematical) approaches.
We have had some success with this work, and a contributing
factor has been that we recognize and acknowledge our common
ground. Whether or not we began as biologists or come to
biology, after 'immigration' from different disciplines,
we have all moved to a frontier biological problem. It is
only by learning together that we can make progress at this
frontier. This need to work together across subject boundaries
makes great demands on the researchers involved, Researchers
must be able to effectively articulate and communicate numerous
aspects of their subject expertise, including basic facts,
advanced arguments, and also their "tacit knowledge". The
MSI will continue to disseminate lessons we have learned
about performing such work to the broader scientific community
so that other researchers may evaluate such lessons or insights
for themselves.
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