Understanding the Rules of Life Program: Scientific Advancements and Future Opportunities

生命科学已成为公共政策和科学解决方案的核心部分，以解决影响社会几乎所有方面的问题，包括气候变化、国防、公共卫生和医药、清洁能源和能源独立、工业(即生物经济)、农业和可持续发展。生命科学与其他科学学科的融合是这些部门取得进展的核心推动因素。2016年，美国国家科学基金会(NSF)建立了一项关于理解生命规则(UROL)的计划，以确定在微观和宏观尺度上管理生物系统的可概括规则。在该奖项的支持下，美国国家科学院、工程学和医学委员会生命科学委员会(NASEM)将对UROL计划进行回顾分析。在这项分析中，NASEM将与UROL首席研究人员进行个人和小组互动，以了解该计划的以下方面：a)成就；b)多学科、系统级方法的整合；c)对研究高度复杂的系统、未来的科学问题和未来的社会需求的更广泛的影响；以及d)产生适用于不同领域和规模的普遍规则。这些讨论的结果将包括一份会议记录，该会议记录将经过同行审查，并通过已建立的NASEM程序公布。NSF Urol Big的想法挑战了多个学科的科学家，以确定控制生物系统在不同规模和复杂性下运行的规则，并确定这些规则中的哪些是可在系统中推广的。该奖项支持的评估和综合活动明确旨在：a)确定在类似规模和复杂性的系统中适用的生命规则；b)确定这些规则中的哪些也适用于不同规模和复杂程度的系统；以及c)获取多学科团队在联合国教科文组织资助的研究中对洞察跨科学学科合作的成功方法的贡献。NASEM已经发表了几份报告，描述了生命科学与其他学科的融合，这将为与Urol调查人员的讨论和项目结果提供信息。来自非结构化和结构化讨论的关键主题将被捕获，以确保评估的结果对NSF和更广泛的科学界具有参考价值。此外，所获得的关于有效的多学科研究环境的知识将使未来的科学家能够建立和领导多学科团队来解决未来的社会和科学问题。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Life sciences have become a core part of public policy and scientific solutions to address problems affecting nearly all aspects of society, including climate change, defense, public health and medicine, clean energy and energy independence, industry (i.e., the bioeconomy), agriculture, and sustainable development. Convergence of the life sciences with other scientific disciplines is a core enabler of advances across these sectors. In 2016, the National Science Foundation (NSF) established a program on Understanding the Rules of Life (URoL) to identify generalizable rules that govern biological systems at micro- and macro-scales. With support from this award, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Board on Life Sciences (NASEM) will conduct a retrospective analysis of the URoL program. For this analysis, the NASEM will interact with URoL principal investigators individually and in group settings to understand the program’s: a) achievements; b) integration of multi-disciplinary, systems-level approaches; c) broader implications for studying highly-complex systems, future scientific questions, and future societal needs; and d) the production of generalizable rules that apply to different fields and scales. The outcomes from these discussions will be include a proceedings, which will be peer reviewed and published through the established NASEM processes. The NSF URoL Big Idea challenged scientists across numerous disciplines to identify rules that govern how biological systems function at various scales and complexities, and determine which of those rules are generalizable across systems. The assessment and synthesis activities supported by this award are designed explicitly to: a) identify rules of life that apply within systems of similar scale and complexity; b) determine which of those rules also apply to systems of differing scales and complexity; and c) capture the contributions from the multidisciplinary teams in URoL-funded research towards providing insight into successful methods for collaborating across scientific disciplines. NASEM has published several reports describing convergence of the life sciences with other disciplines, which will inform discussions with URoL investigators and the project outcomes. Critical themes from unstructured and structured discussions will be captured to ensure that the outcomes of the assessment are informative to NSF and the broader scientific community. Furthermore, the knowledge gained about effective multidisciplinary research environments will enable future scientists to establish and lead multidisciplinary teams toward addressing future societal and scientific problems.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.