BIOCOMPLEXITY--INCUBATION ACTIVITY: Evolutionary and Ecological Functional Genomics: Jumpstarting a Multidisciplinary Field

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The major issues to be addressed by the life scientists of the 21st Century willrequire both the admixture of life science disciplines that have traditionally been separateand the inclusion of disciplines that have traditionally fallen outside the life sciences.Achieving these goals is largely a matter of social engineering: getting isolated scientiststo interact with one another, shifting the training of pre-and post-doctoral students froman oligodisciplinary to a multidisciplinary mode,instituting mechanisms for the sharingof scientific resources, forming interactive scientific communities around major topics orproblems,and so on. For some key communities, this social engineering is already wellunderway,but for others it is not. For this reason we propose a series of 'incubationactivities' for a potential community we will name 'evolutionary and ecological functionalgenomics'(EEFG). The proposed incubation activities have two main goals:1. Physical coalescence of this potential community2. Strategic planning by this community,which will identify its scientific,programmatic, and educational goals; and formulate workable structures for achievingongoing interaction and attaining these goals.The two goals of the incubation activities would be achieved first by aplanning/organizational meeting to be held at the National Science Foundation, and thenby a series of outreach meetings that would be embedded in the annual meetings ofexisting scientific societies on an international scale.