Professor Nigel Slater, from the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, describes how the influx of ideas and principles from non-biological disciplines is shaping a new biology.
Professor Nigel Slater, from the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, describes how the influx of ideas and principles from non-biological disciplines is shaping a new biology.
Research activities are crossing disciplines in efforts to address complex biological systems and provide technical solutions to current and emerging global concerns.
The University of Cambridge has become increasingly aware of the major importance of recent advances at the interface between the life sciences, physical sciences and engineering. A key challenge is to assist the evolution of the established reductionist ‘molecular’ view of biology into a more quantitative, data-rich and predictive science, with an holistic and integrative understanding of its principles.
Research activities are crossing disciplines in efforts to address complex biological systems and provide technical solutions to current and emerging global concerns. Researchers are using new tools in predictive biology and synthetic biology for bio-product design – seeking to go beyond the analysis of enzymes, metabolic networks and cells to consider functionality and delivery as intimately linked elements of the design process. Developments in Cambridge are breaking new ground in biomechanics, tissue engineering and biomimetics: from strategies for restoring function to the damaged nervous system, to next-generation medical implants that interact therapeutically with the body, to the development of mechanically robust bone-like materials for engineering purposes.
The need to integrate expertise in multidisciplinary research environments is well recognised in Cambridge, and 2008 sees the launch of two new research complexes. The Centre for the Physics of Medicine at the West Cambridge Site brings together researchers from the medical, biological and physical sciences to solve problems in healthcare and cell biology; and the Laboratory for Regenerative Medicine at the Cambridge Biomedical Campus provides a link between stem cell biologists, tissue engineers and clinicians for translating fundamental stem cell research to clinical benefits.
Systems biology also describes a multi-component approach, combining theoretical modelling with real data about the interaction between genes and their products. Arising from this is the need to interpret large datasets of complex biological information. The recently launched Cambridge Systems Biology Centre is enabling research groups from different disciplines to interact closely and develop a long-lasting multidisciplinary research environment.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page.
