Trip Report - Visit to the Institute for Systems Biology
This one sort of goes along with my post on synthetic biology.
A few weeks ago I accompanied two of my scientist colleagues on a trip to the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle. We’re developing a concept for a new laboratory and wanted to get some ideas. One of my colleagues has a professional relationship with an ISB co-founder, Leroy Hood. You may recognize the name - Dr. Hood is the godfather of DNA sequencing. The ISB focuses on several bioscience/biotech areas: predictive/preventative/personalized medicine, immunity, systems biology of disease, model organisms, technology development, and computational biology, with an occasional foray into areas like bio-energy.
We met with some of the engineers and architects responsible for the lab fit-out, and took a tour of the facility (you can take a virtual tour yourself). It was, in a word, amazing. Not so much for what we saw, but for what we DIDN’T see.
We didn’t see territorialism, or turf battles, or professionally-aligned fiefdoms. ISB is a cross-disciplinary collaborative organization. Everything about it - from the way the professionals interact to the facility layout itself - challenges the fundamental assumptions of a research organization.
The most obvious departure from the norm was the seamless integration of labs, offices, and meeting spaces. Labs were truly open - no scientist or group ‘owned’ a lab, the lab areas were as open as the office cubicles. The lab and offices were layed out to encourage ‘collisions’ - the architecture forced interaction and discussion. Meeting areas, especially smaller ones, were plentiful. As we toured from floor to floor, the entire facility practically screamed ‘highly collaborative environment!’
And cross-disciplinary collaboration is what ISB is all about. Focusing on the relatively young field of systems biology (which sprung from the results of the Human Genome Project), ISB integrates biologists, mathematicians, computer scientists, and physicists in a highly collaborative fashion, maximizing unique perspectives and thinking in the problem solving process.
ISB is the best illustration of the reversing assumptions tool that I have encountered.
- Assumption - scientists work with scientists in their common discipline. Reversed - scientists collaborate with professionals from diverse, unrelated fields.
- Assumption - scientists control labs designated for their team. Reversed - laboratories are unassigned, opened for all to use.
- Assumption - innovations in biology are the result of research performed primarily by biologists. Reversed - novel, breakthrough innovations in systems biology are the result of the cross-disciplinary collaborative approach.
How do you create an organization like this from scratch? It helps to have highly creative thinkers like Dr. Hood and his colleagues in charge. But another striking thing we noticed about the organization - the vast majority of scientists were young, 10 years or less out of school. We got the feeling that the scientists were ‘trained’ to collaborate and innovate ‘the ISB way’ from day one.
The visit to the ISB shifted my thinking on how a research organization should operate, and how to optimize the organization and facility structure to maximize the potential for breakthrough innovation.
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