RCN: Finding Your Inner Modeler - an interdisciplinary community solving problems in systems biology

该项目旨在发展一个跨学科的细胞生物学家社区，使用计算方法解决复杂的生物学问题。它建立在2017-2019年夏季举办的三次“寻找你的内在建模者”（FYIM）研讨会的成功基础上。这些活动向传统的细胞生物学家介绍了计算建模，并促进了系统生物学的跨学科合作。这个RCN项目将通过促进有兴趣在研究中使用计算方法的细胞生物学家与希望将其计算技能应用于生物问题的物理学家，化学家，工程师，数学家和计算机科学家之间的合作，为更广泛的社区服务。因此，该项目将有利于两个不同的群体：希望将定量和建模工具应用于研究的细胞生物学家，以及希望利用其计算技能推进重要生物学问题研究的其他STEM学科的专家。三个年度会议将作为跨学科互动的孵化器，促进交叉学科，并导致协同合作，推进系统生物学。将开发一个虚拟会场，使远程在线与会者能够与现场会议的与会者直接互动，从而消除大多数地理障碍。标准化FYIM年度会议的时间表，地点和结构预计将鼓励社区意识;相关的FYIM网站将为该社区提供在线家庭和通信中心。一个由10人组成的指导委员会，其成员涵盖广泛的科学专业和地理位置，将与PI和两个共同PI合作，以确保出席人数众多，精力充沛的会议，并利用网站。 这项工作的更广泛的影响涉及在所有学术水平上培训不同群体的参与者。该项目的中心前提是，需要计算建模来从日益庞大和复杂的数据集中提取细胞过程和结构的基本原理。涌现的性质不能通过一次检查一个变量来理解。然而，许多细胞生物学家缺乏利用计算方法的专业知识，而其他领域对生物学问题感兴趣的专家建模者缺乏这样做的机会。三个年度FYIM会议将为传统细胞生物学家提供有关计算建模实用性的见解，如何开始的指导，以及与来自广泛学科的感兴趣的建模者互动的机会。与大多数特定领域的会议不同，这些活动将汇集具有不同背景和专业知识的科学家和工程师，从而促进富有成效的跨学科合作。FYIM网站的持续开发将在项目期间继续进行，目标是为整个系统生物学界创建一个活跃的在线会议场所和信息网络;除了为会议登记和信息提供一个主页外，该网站还将作为基于网络的互动社区的原型。在未来十年内，这些社区可能成为科学交流的重要枢纽，成为远距离旅行的有吸引力的替代品。会议和网站的广告将针对不同的潜在参与者群体，包括他们的职业阶段、所在机构的类型和地点、性别和种族。参与者的多样性对于实现最终目标至关重要，最终目标是促进定量和计算细胞生物学的发展，使其成为与生物信息学和基因组学等其他跨学科领域同等重要的广泛应用和高影响力的学科。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响力审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The project seeks to develop a community of cell biologists working across disciplines to solve complex biological problems using computational approaches. It builds on the success of the three “Finding Your Inner Modeler” (FYIM) workshops that took place in the summers of 2017-2019. These events introduced computational modeling to traditional cell biologists and promoted interdisciplinary collaborations in systems biology. This RCN project will serve a broader community by promoting collaborations between cell biologists interested in using computational methods in their research with physicists, chemists, engineers, mathematicians, and computer scientists who wish to apply their computational skills to biological problems. Thus, the project will benefit two distinct groups: cell biologists who wish to apply quantitative and modeling tools to their research, and experts in other STEM disciplines who wish to advance the study of important biological questions using their computational skills. Three annual meetings will serve as incubators for interdisciplinary interactions, facilitating crosspollination and leading to synergistic collaborations that advance systems biology. A virtual venue will be developed that will allow remote online participants to interact directly with participants at the in-person meetings, thereby removing most geographical barriers. Standardizing the schedule, locations, and structure of the annual FYIM meetings is expected to encourage a sense of community; an associated FYIM website will provide this community with an online home and communications hub. A 10-person Steering Committee whose members cover a broad range of scientific specialties and geographic locations will work with the PI and two co-PIs to ensure well-attended, high-energy meetings, and utilization of the website. The Broader Impacts of this work involve the training of a diverse group of participants at all academic levels. The central premise of this project is that computational modeling is required to extract the principles underlying cell processes and structures from what are increasingly large and complex datasets. Emergent properties simply cannot be understood by examining one variable at a time. Yet, many cell biologists lack the expertise to take advantage of computational approaches, while expert modelers in other fields who are interested in working on biological problems lack the opportunities to do so. The three annual FYIM meetings will provide traditional cell biologists with insights into the utility of computational modeling, guidance in how to get started, and the chance to interact with interested modelers from a broad range of disciplines. Unlike most field-specific meetings, the events will bring together scientists and engineers with diverse backgrounds and expertise, thereby promoting productive interdisciplinary collaborations. The ongoing development of the FYIM website will continue during the project period with the goal of creating an active online meeting place and information nexus for the systems biology community at large; in addition to providing a home for meeting registration and information, the website will serve as a prototype for web-based interactive communities. Such communities may become important hubs of scientific communication and attractive alternatives to distant travel within the next decade. Advertising for the meetings and website will target a diverse group of potential participants with respect to their career stage, type and location of home institution, gender, and ethnicity. The diversity of participants is important to achieving the ultimate aim, which is to promote the development of quantitative and computational cell biology into a widely used and high-impact discipline, on par with other interdisciplinary fields such as bioinformatics and genomics.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.