Institute for Genomic Biology writes new rules for research
The dictionary defines "interdisciplinary"
as "combining two or more academic
disciplines."
The Urbana campus' Institute for Genomic
Biology, the $75 million, 186,000 square-foot
facility dedicated in March 2007, adds a whole
new dimension to the term. IGB's ambitious
charge is to explore and find answers to the
pressing societal issues in human health,
agriculture, the environment and energy use
and production.
The solitary, midnight-oil Lone Ranger
researcher is against IGB rules. All research
must be collaborative, involving investigators
from at least two colleges, and researchers
are expected to find external funding for
their projects. The total population of the
IGB is 350, including 130 faculty members
from 30 disciplines, as well as pre- and postdoctoral
fellows, graduate and undergraduate
researchers and staff.
Consider the IGB research project studying
the microbial activity that creates geological
patterns at Yellowstone National Park's
geothermal hot springs. Led by physicist
Nigel Goldenfeld, disciplines represented
on the team include microbiology,
animal sciences, chemistry, geology and
developmental biology. The project could
make discoveries with applications ranging
from bioremediation of toxic wastes to
how to search for life on other planets.
IGB houses three program areas: systems
biology, cellular and metabolic engineering
and genome technology. The $500-million,
BP-funded Energy Biosciences Institute,
a collaboration between Urbana and the
University of California, Berkeley, also is
located at the IGB.
Interdisciplinary research themes at the
IGB include biocomplexity, genomic
ecology of global change, genomics of
neural and behavioral plasticity,
hostmicrobe
systems, mining microbial
genomes for novel antibiotics, molecular
bioengineering of biomass conversion,
regenerative biology and tissue engineering,
precision proteomics and — something
completely different — the business,
economics and law of genomic biology.
IGB director Harris Lewin says, "Nobody
has business and law embedded in a lifesciences
building."
But law and business are necessary for the
IGB's economic-development, big societal
problem-solving agenda. Lewin adds that
he's taken that on as "a personal mission".
interdisciplinarily personal, that is.
Reporting: Diana Yates, Urbana News Bureau
