Working at the interface of physics and biology: An early career researcher perspective

Claire Dilliway; Oliver Dyer; Elena Mandrou; Daniel Mitchell; Govind Menon; Hugh Sparks; Valentin Kapitany; Alex Payne-Dwyer

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2022.105615

Working at the interface of physics and biology: An early career researcher perspective

iScience. 2022 Nov 25;25(12):105615. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.105615. eCollection 2022 Dec 22.

Authors

Claire Dilliway¹, Oliver Dyer², Elena Mandrou³, Daniel Mitchell⁴, Govind Menon⁵, Hugh Sparks⁶, Valentin Kapitany⁷, Alex Payne-Dwyer⁸

Affiliations

¹ Department of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Imperial College London, London, UK.
² Department of Physics, Warwick University, Coventry, UK.
³ Cancer Research UK Beatson Institute, University of Glasgow, Institute of Cancer Sciences, Glasgow, Scotland, UK.
⁴ Henry Wellcome Building for Biocatalysis, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK.
⁵ Department of Computational and Systems Biology, John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK.
⁶ Photonics Group, Department of Physics, Imperial College London, London, UK.
⁷ University of Glasgow, School of Physics & Astronomy, Glasgow, Scotland, UK.
⁸ School of Physics, Engineering and Technology, University of York, York, UK.

Abstract

We are a network of Early Career Researchers (ECRs) and a Project Manager who are working on UKRI's "Physics of Life" grants which aim to merge ideas and techniques predominantly used in physics and apply them to biological questions. We have been collaborating since early 2021 to share research, experiences, and provide peer to peer support. Interdisciplinary projects are known for presenting challenges, bringing together disparate subjects and people with not only different knowledge bases, methods, and equipment but also varying ways of working and common languages. This has been the subject of commentary by researchers and funders from a management perspective, and we wanted to add to this discourse, using our experience to share the lessons and challenges we have encountered, from an ECR perspective.

Publication types

News