scholarly journals Science Forum: Building a community to engineer synthetic cells and organelles from the bottom-up

eLife ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oskar Staufer ◽  
Jacqueline A De Lora ◽  
Eleonora Bailoni ◽  
Alisina Bazrafshan ◽  
Amelie S Benk ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Resource Sharing ◽  
Life Sciences ◽  
Research Community ◽  
Hierarchical Organization ◽  
Cellular Life ◽  
Synthetic Cells ◽  
Technological Impact ◽  
And Function ◽  
Communication Resource

Employing concepts from physics, chemistry and bioengineering, 'learning-by-building' approaches are becoming increasingly popular in the life sciences, especially with researchers who are attempting to engineer cellular life from scratch. The SynCell2020/21 conference brought together researchers from different disciplines to highlight progress in this field, including areas where synthetic cells are having socioeconomic and technological impact. Conference participants also identified the challenges involved in designing, manipulating and creating synthetic cells with hierarchical organization and function. A key conclusion is the need to build an international and interdisciplinary research community through enhanced communication, resource-sharing, and educational initiatives.

scholarly journals Building a community to engineer synthetic cells and organelles from the bottom-up

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oskar Staufer ◽  
Jacqueline A. De Lora ◽  
Eleonora Bailoni ◽  
Alisina Bazrafshan ◽  
Amelie S. Benk ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Resource Sharing ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Hierarchical Organization ◽  
Cellular Life ◽  
Integrated Research ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Synthetic Cells ◽  
And Function ◽  
Key Steps ◽  
Communication Resource

Empowered by emerging concepts from physics, chemistry, and bioengineering, learning-by-building approaches have found increasing application in the life sciences. Particularly, they are directed to tackle the overarching goal of engineering cellular life from scratch. The SynCell2020/21 conference brought together a diverse group of researchers to share progress and chart the course of this field. Participants identified key steps to design, manipulate, and create cell-like entities, especially those with hierarchical organization and function. This article highlights achievements in the field, including areas where synthetic cells are having socioeconomic and technological impact. Guided by input from early-career researchers, we identify challenges and opportunities for basic science and technological applications of synthetic cells. A key conclusion is the need to build an integrated research community through enhanced communication, resource-sharing, and educational initiatives. Development of an international and interdisciplinary community will enable transformative outcomes and attract the brightest minds to contribute to the field.

scholarly journals riboCIRC: a comprehensive database of translatable circRNAs

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Huihui Li ◽  
Mingzhe Xie ◽  
Yan Wang ◽  
Ludong Yang ◽  
Zhi Xie ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
De Novo ◽  
Species Conservation ◽  
Structure And Function ◽  
Research Community ◽  
Genome Browser ◽  
Valuable Resource ◽  
Sequence Structure ◽  
A Genome ◽  
Context Specific ◽  
And Function

AbstractriboCIRC is a translatome data-oriented circRNA database specifically designed for hosting, exploring, analyzing, and visualizing translatable circRNAs from multi-species. The database provides a comprehensive repository of computationally predicted ribosome-associated circRNAs; a manually curated collection of experimentally verified translated circRNAs; an evaluation of cross-species conservation of translatable circRNAs; a systematic de novo annotation of putative circRNA-encoded peptides, including sequence, structure, and function; and a genome browser to visualize the context-specific occupant footprints of circRNAs. It represents a valuable resource for the circRNA research community and is publicly available at http://www.ribocirc.com.

scholarly journals SorghumBase: a web-based portal for sorghum genetic information and community advancement

Planta ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 255 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Gladman ◽  
Andrew Olson ◽  
Sharon Wei ◽  
Kapeel Chougule ◽  
Zhenyuan Lu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Resource Sharing ◽  
Content Management ◽  
Research Community ◽  
Data Types ◽  
Training Materials ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Variant Information ◽  
Data Collation ◽  
Genome Assemblies ◽  
User Friendly

Abstract Main conclusion SorghumBase provides a community portal that integrates genetic, genomic, and breeding resources for sorghum germplasm improvement. Abstract Public research and development in agriculture rely on proper data and resource sharing within stakeholder communities. For plant breeders, agronomists, molecular biologists, geneticists, and bioinformaticians, centralizing desirable data into a user-friendly hub for crop systems is essential for successful collaborations and breakthroughs in germplasm development. Here, we present the SorghumBase web portal (https://www.sorghumbase.org), a resource for the sorghum research community. SorghumBase hosts a wide range of sorghum genomic information in a modular framework, built with open-source software, to provide a sustainable platform. This initial release of SorghumBase includes: (1) five sorghum reference genome assemblies in a pan-genome browser; (2) genetic variant information for natural diversity panels and ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS)-induced mutant populations; (3) search interface and integrated views of various data types; (4) links supporting interconnectivity with other repositories including genebank, QTL, and gene expression databases; and (5) a content management system to support access to community news and training materials. SorghumBase offers sorghum investigators improved data collation and access that will facilitate the growth of a robust research community to support genomics-assisted breeding.

A Formal Investigation of Semantic Interoperability of HCLS Systems

2015 ◽  
pp. 177-208
Author(s):  
Ratnesh Sahay ◽  
Antoine Zimmermann ◽  
Ronan Fox ◽  
Axel Polleres ◽  
Manfred Hauswirth
Keyword(s):  
Life Sciences ◽  
Knowledge Bases ◽  
Semantic Interoperability ◽  
Research Community ◽  
Local Information ◽  
General Notion ◽  
Global Knowledge ◽  
Research Issues ◽  
Key Features ◽  
Overall Effectiveness

Semantic interoperability facilitates Health Care and Life Sciences (HCLS) systems in connecting stakeholders at various levels as well as ensuring seamless use of healthcare resources. Their scope ranges from local to regional, national and cross-border. The use of semantics in delivering interoperable solution for HCLS systems is weakened by fact that an Ontology Based Information System (OBIS) has restrictions in modeling, aggregating, and interpreting global knowledge in conjunction with local information (e.g., policy, profiles). This chapter presents an example-scenario that shows such limitations and recognizes that enabling two key features, namely the type and scope of knowledge, within a knowledge base could enhance the overall effectiveness of an OBIS. This chapter provides the idea of separating knowledge bases in types with scope (e.g., global or local) of applicability. Then, it proposes two concrete solutions on this general notion. Finally, the chapter describes open research issues that may be of interest to knowledge system developers and broader research community.

Building strong research associations Interdisciplinarity, theory-building, and policy in politics and the life sciences and health services research

2011 ◽  
Vol 30 (01) ◽  
pp. 56-60
Author(s):  
William P. Brandon
Keyword(s):  
Health Services Research ◽  
Health Services ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Life Sciences ◽  
Research Area ◽  
The Other ◽  
Theory Building ◽  
Services Research ◽  
Lower Case

This essay explores efforts to establish interdisciplinary research associations by comparing two organizations that were founded in the early 1980s. One has focused on the field of politics and the life sciences and the other on health services research. Both are involved in securing recognition for a research area—or “field of research”—that had not previously been conceptualized as a coherent academic or professional enterprise. The motivation for this paper is my interest in politics and the life sciences (the field), the organization—the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences that was established in 1980 to foster scholarly study of the field—and its journal Politics and the Life Sciences. (For the sake of clarity I adopt the convention of signifying a field entirely in lower-case orthography, beginning an organizational name with capital letters and naming the related journals in italics.)

scholarly journals Coworking, a Way to Achieve Sustainable Mobility? Designing an Interdisciplinary Research Project

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (24) ◽  
pp. 7161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Lejoux ◽  
Aurore Flipo ◽  
Nathalie Ortar ◽  
Nicolas Ovtracht ◽  
Stéphanie Souche-Lecorvec ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Computer Science ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Research Community ◽  
Community Research ◽  
Sustainable Mobility ◽  
Relevant Research ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Mobility Studies ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research Project ◽  
Transportation Studies

Sustainable mobility has been one of the central paradigms of research in the field of transport and mobility for several decades. However, the implications of adopting the concept of “sustainable mobility” for the conduct of interdisciplinary research has been little discussed within the relevant research community. Research in the field of transport and mobility has nevertheless been the setting for major debates in recent years on the question of interdisciplinarity, or even transdisciplinarity, with the emergence of mobility studies as opposed to transportation studies. The objective of this paper is to show, empirically, how researchers who are specialised in mobility and transport issues, but who belong to different disciplines (anthropology, computer science, economics, geomatics, sociology and urban planning) have sought to build an interdisciplinary research project—which is currently ongoing—around the links between the development of coworking, which is a new way of organising work, mobility and sustainability. This paper sets out to highlight cross-fertilisation between disciplines, the issues raised, and the difficulties encountered. As such, it provides an account that is as faithful as possible to our experience of conducting interdisciplinary research in the area of sustainable mobility.

Building strong research associations Interdisciplinarity, theory-building, and policy in politics and the life sciences and health services research

2011 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
William P. Brandon
Keyword(s):  
Health Services Research ◽  
Health Services ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Life Sciences ◽  
Research Area ◽  
The Other ◽  
Theory Building ◽  
Services Research ◽  
Lower Case

This essay explores efforts to establish interdisciplinary research associations by comparing two organizations that were founded in the early 1980s. One has focused on the field of politics and the life sciences and the other on health services research. Both are involved in securing recognition for a research area—or “field of research”—that had not previously been conceptualized as a coherent academic or professional enterprise. The motivation for this paper is my interest in politics and the life sciences (the field), the organization—the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences that was established in 1980 to foster scholarly study of the field—and its journal Politics and the Life Sciences. (For the sake of clarity I adopt the convention of signifying a field entirely in lower-case orthography, beginning an organizational name with capital letters and naming the related journals in italics.)

scholarly journals Visualization of a Cytoskeleton-like Ftsz Network in Chloroplasts

2000 ◽  
Vol 151 (4) ◽  
pp. 945-950 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justine Kiessling ◽  
Sven Kruse ◽  
Stefan A. Rensing ◽  
Klaus Harter ◽  
Eva L. Decker ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Sciences ◽  
Dependent Manner ◽  
Bacterial Cell Division ◽  
Subcellular Structure ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
Intron Structure ◽  
Division Process ◽  
Eukaryotic Organisms ◽  
And Function ◽  
Dose Dependent

It has been a long-standing dogma in life sciences that only eukaryotic organisms possess a cytoskeleton. Recently, this belief was questioned by the finding that the bacterial cell division protein FtsZ resembles tubulin in sequence and structure and, thus, may be the progenitor of this major eukaryotic cytoskeletal element. Here, we report two nuclear-encoded plant ftsZ genes which are highly conserved in coding sequence and intron structure. Both their encoded proteins are imported into plastids and there, like in bacteria, they act on the division process in a dose-dependent manner. Whereas in bacteria FtsZ only transiently polymerizes to a ring-like structure, in chloroplasts we identified persistent, highly organized filamentous scaffolds that are most likely involved in the maintenance of plastid integrity and in plastid division. As these networks resemble the eukaryotic cytoskeleton in form and function, we suggest the term “plastoskeleton” for this newly described subcellular structure.

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