Birds of a Feather Feedback: Chemists, Mathematicians and Computer Scientists

Following a group discussion of the previous day’s events, participants broke into two groups. Biologists went into a different room than their non-biologist partners so that educators could meet with others from their field to discuss the obstacles of combining disciplines. The anonymous statements below reflect some of the concerns of non-biologist after their first day of collaborative synthetic biology research.

“What I find is most difficult about working with biologists is taking in all of the terminology that they use in their research.” (chemist)

A computer scientist agreed adding “working in biology is like speaking a different language, and as a non-biologist it was very hard to work with the iGEM registry during our first assignment.”

Another mathematician stated that they “would like to see more math involved [in the projects].”

“When you’re doing synthetic biology, the biology seems to take the forefront and math becomes a tool. This may deter mathematicians. The novelty comes when you take the biological process and describe it in a mathematical way. However, it is not hard math. Combining the two is the challenge,” commented another mathematician.

A computer scientists expressed feeling like a tech support for a biologist. It was a general consensus that the projects ought not to work that way. Ideally, partners should be able to work together on something that satisfies and stimulates curiosities of each discipline.