NSF Award Abstract - #0083375

AWSFL008-DS3

BIOCOMPLEXITY--INCUBATION ACTIVITY: Evolutionary and Ecological Functional
Genomics: Jumpstarting a Multidisciplinary Field

Abstract

The major issues to be addressed by the life scientists of the 21st Century will require both the admixture of life science disciplines that have traditionally been separate and the inclusion of disciplines that have traditionally fallen outside the life sciences. Achieving these goals is largely a matter of social engineering: getting isolated scientists to interact with one another, shifting the training of pre-and post-doctoral students from an oligodisciplinary to a multidisciplinary mode,instituting mechanisms for the sharing of scientific resources, forming interactive scientific communities around major topics or problems,and so on. For some key communities, this social engineering is already well underway,but for others it is not. For this reason we propose a series of 'incubation activities' for a potential community we will name 'evolutionary and ecological functional genomics'(EEFG). The proposed incubation activities have two main goals: 1. Physical coalescence of this potential community 2. Strategic planning by this community,which will identify its scientific, programmatic, and educational goals; and formulate workable structures for achieving ongoing interaction and attaining these goals. The two goals of the incubation activities would be achieved first by a planning/organizational meeting to be held at the National Science Foundation, and then by a series of outreach meetings that would be embedded in the annual meetings of existing scientific societies on an international scale.