LONDON — For the next five years, grant applications that fall within four broad areas — integrative biology, sustainable agriculture, the healthy organism and bioscience for industry — stand most chance of loosening the purse strings of the grant committees of the UK's Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).
These four themes, together with a stated need to re-educate the biology community to think in terms of collaboration and interdisciplinary work, emerged as the core of the BBSRC's strategy for 2003–2008, launched in London on January 24.
Bionanotechnology, for example, is one field on the cusp of disciplines that is exciting funders. "Only last Friday," said Ian Booth, professor of microbial physiology at the University of Aberdeen, "someone rang to ask if I was interested in a collaboration between my work in ion channels and theirs in nanotubes. Knowing that there are to be initiatives in this area stimulates ...
