The Role of Theory in Advancing 21st-Century Biology Catalyzing Transformative Research (2008) / Chapter Skim
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11 Findings and Recommendations
11 Findings and Recommendations
Pages 162-167
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From page 162... ...
The living world presents a vast reservoir of biological solutions to many practical challenges, and biological systems can inspire innovation in many fields. The many ways that basic biological research contributes to medicine are very familiar, but basic biology can also contribute to advances in fields as diverse as food, fishery, and forest production, pest management, resource management, conservation, transportation, information processing, materials science, and engineering.
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From page 163... ...
Tying together the results of research in the many diverse areas of biology requires a robust theoretical and conceptual framework, upon which a broad and diverse research portfolio of basic biological investigations can be based. The impact of biology on society could be enhanced if discovery and experimentation are complemented by efforts to continuously enrich biology's fundamental theoretical and conceptual basis.
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From page 164... ...
Challenges to long-held theories and concepts are likely to be held to a higher standard of evidence than more conventional proposals. Proposals that break new ground can face difficulty in attracting funding, for example, those that cross traditional subdisciplinary boundaries, take a purely theoretical approach, or have the potential to destabilize a field by challenging conventional wisdom.
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From page 165... ...
Finding 4 Technological advances in arrays, high-throughput sequencing, remote sensing, miniaturization, wireless communication, high-resolution imaging, and other areas, combined with increasingly powerful computing resources and data analysis techniques, are dramatically expanding biologists' observational, experimental, and quantitative capabilities. Questions can be asked, and answered, that were well beyond our grasp only a few years ago.
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From page 166... ...
While it is somewhat new to many areas of biology, other fields that create massive data sets, like astronomy and seismology, rely on theory to guide pattern detection and to direct in silico experimentation and modeling. Getting the most out of the extensive biological data that can now be collected will increasingly require that biologists broadly develop
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From page 167... ...
In many cases, this will require standardization. Pro viding opportunities for biologists to learn from other disciplines that routinely carry out theoretical research on diverse data sets should also be explicitly encouraged.
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