Editor’s note: Ever wondered why ants don’t get into traffic jams? The answer could lie in decades of research conducted by ecologists and mathematicians. The resultant Ant Colony Algorithm can be used in solving global problems that include drug discovery and regulating road traffic in big cities. Would you name these ecologists and mathematicians as computational biologists because they went across the aisle to find solutions? In today’s blog from #ClubSciWri, Rohit Arora talks about this interdisciplinary nomenclature conundrum of being an ‘unlikely biologist’ when coding to solving nature’s riddles. Probably a lot of biologists like Rohit are donning several thinking hats and throwing them in the ring too!- Abhinav Dey
I graduated a few years ago and to this day when someone asks me about what my PhD is in, I have to stop and think for a second before I respond. Based on my conversations with other PhDs I realized that this happens to all of us, mainly because we tend to quickly ascertain the appropriate level of technical lingo we want to use in our response, based on the technical inclination of our audience. This would be the difference between saying “I’m a Biologist” versus “I’m a Micro-biologist” or “I’m a Micro-biologist specialized in Microbial Genetics” – we know the difference in these statements and realize the scope of biological sciences covered by each of them, but our audience may or may not understand it. In addition to this minor conundrum, when I call myself a biologist, I often end up second-guessing my response. You see, I characterize myself as a computational biologist and it is essential for me get across the computational part of that characterization due to some intangible fear of misrepresentation.
While I obtained my PhD in Life Sciences at a department of applied biology, surrounded by cell and micro-biologists, I never received any formal training in biological sciences outside of a couple of courses during my masters and the literature I read during the course of my PhD. On top of that, I received my bachelors in chemistry, and Masters in an unusual (and remarkable) interdisciplinary program at the intersection of nano and biotechnology, which had more application in branches of physics and chemistry than in biology. At this point, I felt most comfortable with chemistry, more specifically physical chemistry (ironically the topic I despised in college), but wanted to avoid benchwork like a plague. When the time came to make a decision about master’s dissertation and when I carefully strategized the best way I could utilize my interest in physical chemistry and aversion to benchwork, I decided to lean on a little-known course on computational chemistry that I took during my semester in Poland. I enjoyed the course and did well on it and could foresee its application in biological sciences (interdisciplinary was the buzzword). I found a lab that would host me for not only my master’s dissertation but also helped me obtain scholarship for my PhD.
For the most part my research involved application of in-silico methods to study mechanisms of clinically important complex biological systems, relationship between macromolecule structure and function, and the effects small-molecule inhibitors can have on the function. During my first postdoctoral fellowship I continued research on a similar theme, but in a more commercial setting due to collaboration with pharmaceutical company. It was there that I truly realized the demand and utility of the aforementioned computational of computational biology. It is becoming the one of the primary step in conception of a new drug or treatment, and there lies potential to do so much more. Think about it – looking to optimize traffic signal timing? Look no further than Ant Colony Algorithms, inspired by behavior of ants looking for the shortest route between their colony and food source. Similarly, Genetic Algorithms, based on the principle of natural selection, have been used in protein-ligand docking methods that help to select the best drug candidates against a certain to be tested. If the principle behind two processes is similar, model of one process can help understand the other. While this is a general statement, some process and subject specific approximations are almost always applied. Interdisciplinary, remember? Essentially, this may allow one to thrive in a branch of science without being an expert in that particular branch. Or as Dr. Donald E. Ingber of the Wyss Institute has aptly put, “Nature has no separate departments of biology, physics, chemistry, or engineering, nor does it separate medicine from other industries”.
With this spirit and excitement in me I decided to venture into somewhat uncharted waters. Coding. I decided that it was time I learned to develop methods, which may find application in solving problems in biology. I was accepted to work for a lab, which does exactly this. I’ve coded before but mostly to automate small tasks in my otherwise very application-focused work. It took me 4-6 months to get comfortable with my new virtual surroundings, including the new coding language. As I make progress I realize that this knowledge and skill-set can be used in a number of different domains outside of biology including social sciences, economics, finance and healthcare. I have been flirting with the idea of perhaps venturing into something new and see how well I fare. But if I do, will I still be a biologist? Does it depend on how much biology is involved in the problems my work may address? When you take a bite from an apple, is it still an apple? Who decides? I don’t know.
About the author: Rohit Arora obtained his PhD from ENS in France. Post-phd he worked as a postdoc in France in collaboration with a major pharmaceutical company. He is currently a postdoc at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. His research focus includes understanding biological structure-function relationships, and developing novel tools to make sense out of “big data” in biology. He enjoys reading about his newfound interest in history of mathematics, geometry, and philosophy. He can be reached on Twitter @RealRohitArora (sure, you try and come up with a better handle for name this common)
Feature Image source: Pixabay
This work by ClubSciWri is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
