UK Multi-Scale Biology Network

Life, from single cells such as bacteria, to populations of plants and animals is complex and multi-layered. Processes acting at one scale can have profound effects on a system at larger and smaller scales. For example, single bacterial cells, whose size is a fraction of the width of a human hair, can form colonies whose behaviour is massively influenced by their collective interaction. Molecular and physical events at the tip of growing plant roots or shoots can have profound effects on the whole plant, and therefore on food production. Diseases that manifest themselves at the scale of whole organs (e.g. lungs, hearts, livers) often arise due to microscopic changes at the level of the individual cells that make up those organs.

Multi-scale biology seeks to improve our understanding of these multi-layered biological systems by developing new approaches that combine biological sciences with other disciplines such as mathematics, physics, computer science and engineering. This means gathering data at multiple relevant scales (e.g. single cell and whole tissue scale; individual plants/animals and farm or ecosystem scale) and developing tools for reasoning about and modelling such systems whilst taking into account how changes at one scale may impact the system at other scales.

Multi-scale biology presents many new challenges to the relevant disciplines, and many opportunities to exploit capabilities developed in different contexts. For example, weather forecasting and climate modeling rely on sophisticated computer models and techniques of data analysis which could be adapted for use in the biological context. Experience in those fields demonstrates how important is the availability of large amount of quantitative data defined over space, time, and across scales, and suggests that a major shift is required in the biosciences to make routine the generation of similarly detailed data. On the other hand, many advances have been made in the analysis and computer modelling of multiscale biological systems, but many of the models are hard to re-use or combine with other tools in novel ways. Thus a community effort is required to share best practice, to encourage the development and adoption of standards for sharing data and models, to identify opportunities in the field, and to bring together teams of scientists to address grand challenges in the biosciences, such as global food security, sustainability, healthcare, and the reduction and replacement of animals in research. The proposed network will run community building events (where many scientists from different disciplines give short "pitches" about their work and how it can contribute to multi-scale biology), hackathons and study groups (where teams work together over a week in an intensive way to develop computational tools or models), and a summer school (providing training in multi-scale biology). Furthermore, the network will host a website to facilitate community interactions and resource sharing, and support exchange visits between research groups to help launch new collaborations.

'Predictive biology' is expected to underpin developments across the BBSRC remit, with impacts on global food security, sustainability, synthetic biology and healthcare. Predictive biology needs to integrate data gathered at multiple spatial (e.g. molecules, cells, organs) and temporal (e.g. catalytic, metabolic, developmental) scales, in order to produce an integrated understanding of how multi-scale biological systems function.

Currently, most research related to Multi-Scale Biology (MSB) builds on individual developments of experimental, mathematical and computational methods, and there is great potential to coordinate data and model generation, sharing and re-use. Furthermore, MSB will drive technological developments such as improvements in spatial and temporal resolution, simultaneous measurement of complementary data, and in extracting information from data. Experiences from other predictive sciences (e.g. weather and climate modelling) demonstrates the importance of large amounts of quantitative data defined over space, time, and across scales. MSB could learn a lot from these other research domains. Thus, in order to strengthen links within the UK MSB community, and to build bridges with other relevant communities, we will establish a UK Multi-Scale Biology Network.
The network will organise a number of activities:
* A springboard meeting that starts to identify biological systems ripe for MSB approaches, open problems that should be addressed to facilitate exploration of these biological systems, and expertise in other domains that can contribute to multi-scale biology.
* A web site for community building and resource sharing.
* Hackathons and study groups that catalyse the development of exemplar in MSB.
* Hot topic workshops.
* A Summer school exposing life scientists to techniques in MSB.
* An international conference for knowledge sharing and developing international collaborations within MSB.
* Collaborative exchanges between groups

Multi-scale biology is an emerging research area, currently time intensive and often involving ab initio development of tools that could instead be adapted and reused. Methodological and technological developments can be exploited not only to improve the quality and usability of multi-scale approaches, but also to accelerate their further development. The Network will therefore seek to achieve its impact in large part through encouraging the widespread uptake of multi-scale approaches: it will do this by a variety of approaches to communication and training, by identifying mechanisms by which to improve the ease of use, reproducibility, adaptability and breadth of applicability of the associated tools and by providing exemplars of successful research projects.

Academic beneficiaries:
Engaging with a wide variety of academic communities (including computer scientists, engineers, mathematicians, physicists and social scientists, as well as bioscientists) is a central goal of the Network and all of its activities will be heavily promoted through its website, by the compilation of extensive mailing lists and through the relevant learned societies. The proposed Study Groups, hackathons and Summer schools represent tried and tested pathways to academic impact, providing convincing proof-of-concept studies and generating new collaborations, research proposals, publications, models and tools. The hot-topic workshops will familiarise participants with the state of the art in specific methodologies, while the collaborative visits will facilitate the putting together of the cross-disciplinary teams that will be crucial to success in multi-scale biology. The springboard meeting and international conference will seek to promote the approach to as broad a range of researchers as possible, as well as showcasing the network.

Commercial beneficiaries:
The Network will also heavily promote its activities to the relevant industrial sectors (including biotechnology, food and pharmaceutical), seeking (for example) Study-Group problem presenters from industry and presenting success stories of the application of the approach. The above mechanisms for engaging with academic beneficiaries thus apply equally to commercial ones and industrial participants have contributed actively to the development of the Network.

Engagement with the broader public:
Both the novelty and the long-term significance of the field will make it of interest and appeal to a wide range of other communities, including the media, undergraduates, school teachers and pupils, as well as the general public. Hence while the main efforts of the Network will be directed at promoting the approach to the disparate research communities required for its success and sustainability, the website and press releases will also target the general public, seeking to raise awareness of the power of multi-scale approaches and of their relevance to many key priorities, including global food security, sustainability, lifelong health and antimicrobial resistance.
Funding bodies and policy makers:
The portfolio of effective applications of multi-scale approaches put in place by the Network can also be expected to have an influence on UK research priorities and, taking a long-term view of likely developments in the field, opportunities to promote its activities in this way will also be sought.

International impact:
Network members are well-connected with relevant researchers overseas and will draw on their expertise and on engagement with leading-edge research elsewhere in informing the development of the Network. The Network will in consequence also play an important role in building multinational collaborations, in influencing European research policy and in contributing to the development of internationally recognised multi-scale model and data exchange formats.