A communication problem

By combining the fields of engineering and biology, synthetic biology clearly revolutionizes how we conceptualize and approach living systems. The interdisciplinary nature of synthetic biology requires involvement of biologists, physicist, chemists, engineers, computer scientists and others.

To encourage the generation of new approaches, we set up a diverse team combining students reading mainly biology and related disciplines, with engineer students having physics, mathematics and information technology at the core of their education. We rapidly observed that this mixture of educational backgrounds impeded the communication between team members during our brainstorming sessions. The situation was especially difficult when theoreticians and biologists were confronted, because efficient communication could not be established due to a lack of a common language.

Therefore our team decided to address specifically this communication problem, which is central in the development of a synthetic biology project.