Collaborations are a fact of life for interdisciplinary fields like biomedical computing, and social scientists can help researchers understand how to make them more productive
Social scientists who study science have noticed a trend: More and more researchers are collaborating. Over the last twenty years, the number of co-authored papers has increased in every scientific...
Jul, 01, 2008
Even when we simply stand still on two feet, our brains communicate with our muscles—firing them appropriately to keep us upright against gravity. So when scientists simulate simple or complex...
Jun, 06, 2012
As algorithms evolve, computing power explodes, and scientists solve a greater number of 3-D protein structures, computer-aided design has the potential to dramatically cut the cost and time of drug discovery
Once upon a time, not long ago, HIV/AIDS was a scourge, killing anyone who contracted the deadly virus. Now, many people are living with the disease, which they control with drugs initially developed...
Jul, 01, 2007
Janelia farmers pursue novel, cross-disciplinary collaborations to work on long-term, unwieldy scientific problems difficult to tackle in a single laboratory
The folks at Howard Hughes Medical Institute who dreamed up Janelia Farm say it is as much a social innovation as a scientific one. “We are creating a different culture here,” says Gerald...
Jul, 01, 2006
Decades of steady progress in pharmacogenetics have unearthed hundreds of associations between genes and drug response. But the field has to solve some theoretical and practical issues before it can deliver on the promise of personalized drug therapy.
As algorithms go, it’s deceptively simple. Just add together eight weighted pieces of patient information—age, height, weight, race, data about two genes, and a pair of clinical...
Jul, 01, 2009
As barriers to massive imaging collections fall, researchers can look at human systems in their entirety rather than in pieces
In the beginning there was the Visible Human. It broke new ground by gathering some 2,000 serial images from a death row inmate’s cadaver, and was the first time researchers had sectioned a...
Jul, 01, 2007
Describing information flow within cells
Like corporate and governmental organizations, cells rely on middle managers to keep things running smoothly. These “middle managers” function as a critical bridge that controls the flow...
Jun, 01, 2010
It’s impossible to predict what the hottest new tools will be, but here are a few gems that caught our attention
Many experimental researchers rely on computational tools to push the pace and productivity of laboratory research. It’s impossible to predict what the hottest new tools will be, but this...
Apr, 01, 2011
Pursuing the frontiers of systems biology in an interdisciplinary, non-academic enviroment
The Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) was founded in Seattle, Washington in 2000 by Leroy Hood, MD, PhD, Alan Aderem, PhD, and Reudi Aebersold, PhD. Five years later, they are pursuing the...
Apr, 01, 2006
A safe haven for asking fundamental, wide-ranging questions
In the summer, it can be hard to find a place to sit at the Santa Fe Institute. Much of the year, only about a dozen researchers make their home at the multidisciplinary research organization. But in...
Oct, 01, 2006
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