nodalpoint.org - Interdisciplinary - Comments

Success? Wait and see...

Duncan — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 07:15:00 -0400

I think the primary motivation of MIB is scientific success before commercial success. Only time will tell how successful they are, and if MIB can be a truly world-class research centre. The comments on this post by Greg and Neil reminded me of an article by Gerald Rubin from Berkeley in Cell describing an an ongoing experiment in the social engineering of scientific research communities at Janelia Farm. Their experiment is trying to recreate the success of the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology (MRC LMB) in Cambridge, England and AT&T's Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey. Like Paul Grahams How to Be Silly Valley, the article proposes a set of social requirements for doing world-leading groundbreaking scientific research. Speaking of which, A Beginner's guide to winning the Nobel Prize by Peter Doherty looks like it might be a good read as well.

Exciting initiative

Neil — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 18:20:14 -0400

This looks great and I hope the centre succeeds. It's certainly an impressive speaker list for the inauguration - even I know or know of at least a half-dozen of those names.

As for how to create a "world-class" centre - good people and money! OK, it's a bit more complex than that. I think the IMB has succeeded because (1) they've identified important biological problems, more often than not with a biomedical angle and (2) they have excellent integration and collaboration between large-scale wet lab experiments (transcriptomics, imaging, screens of various sorts) and the computational people. It's not just a case of taking pre-existing groups, adding computer nerds and throwing them together in a building (though admittedly IMB did kind of start out that way).

Reading this post reminded

Greg — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 13:44:13 -0400

Reading this post reminded me of a recent Paul Graham essay: How to Be Silicon Valley. While Manchester is renowned for having one of the world's best football teams it is not known for being a mecca of bioinformatics. I'm sure there are some excellent groups there, however the question is *can* it be a world class research center ? I am facing a similar problem at the moment. How to create an environment that will attract the right people to do world class bioinformatics ?

Mr. Graham, who we should note is a world class pontificator, suggests that there are two ingredients: "I think you only need two kinds of people to create a technology hub: rich people and nerds."

Taiwan has its fair share of rich people and nerds (who do you think makes all those iPods), but it doesn't seem to have helped produce a rich source of bioinformatics wannabees...

Mr. Graham goes on at some length elaborating on these points, but one thing I did not see in his diatribe was the risk taking element. To move to Manchester or work for a company that does not yet have an industry sell to, you have to take a fairly large risk. This risk impacts apon your financial future, lifestyle and many other aspects of your life.

So my question is does Manchester have what it takes ? Are people willing to take the risk ? Neil may have something to say on this, IMB is also in the business of creating a 'world class research center'.

And Steve I know you're reading, so please, let us know your thoughts on this one :)