Adam Arkins

Dr. Arkin is Associate Professor of Bioengineering at the University of California , Berkeley; Adjunct Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California , San Francisco. He received his Ph.D. degree in physical chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He then pursued postdoctoral studies at Stanford University in chemistry with John Ross and in developmental biology with Harley McAdams and Lucy Shapiro.

Stephen Oliver

Synopsis: Stems biology aims at taking a more synthetic or holistic approach to deciphering the workings of living organisms. Although the ultimate aim is to construct mathematical models of complete cells or organisms that have both explanatory and predictive power, we are some way from achieving such global syntheses and we need a principled way of reducing the complexity of the problem. Accordingly, we require a top-down strategy to provide an initial coarse-grained model of the cell, and a bottom-up strategy in which individual sub-systems are modelled.

Steve Oliver is Professor of Systems Biology & Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge and Director of the Cambridge Centre for Systems Biology. His research involves both experimental and bioinformatics approaches to understanding the workings of the eukaryotic cell, mainly using the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae as his experimental system. Steve Oliver led the European team that sequenced the first chromosome, from any organism, yeast chromosome III.

He continued to play a major role in the Yeast Genome Sequencing Project, and went on to become Scientific Coordinator of EUROFAN, which pioneered a wide range of approaches to the systematic analysis of gene function, using S. cerevisiae. His current work employs a range of high-throughput analytical techniques – transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and rapid phenotyping. He is exploiting genome-wide metabolic models to identify functional modules within the yeast metabolic network and predict epistatic interactions between genes.

He collaborated with Ross King to develop the Robot Scientist system for automated functional genomic hypothesis generation and experimentation, and re-engineered the genome configuration of yeast to provide a direct test of the chromosomal theory of evolution. Steve Oliver is Editor-in-Chief of Yeast, a member of EMBO, a Fellow of both the American Academy of Microbiology, and the Academy of Medical Sciences. He was recently made an Honorary Member of the British Mycological Society, Fellow of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science and Professorial Fellow at Wolfson College, Cambridge.

Joyce Tait

Synopsis: New interdisciplinary developments in life sciences are leading to increasingly rapid emergence of new knowledge and ideas with potential commercial application. In life sciences there is an automatic presumption of regulation for any new development and this has in the past led to an increasingly expensive and lengthy development stage, ensuring that " only major multinationals can play " eventually, as in drug development today, stultifying the entire innovation system. Public and stakeholder pressures tend to reinforce demands for more regulation and stricter governance, in the case of synthetic biology related to bio-safety, bio-security, trade and global justice, and the morality of creating novel life forms. However, the policy makers' responses to these pressures can have counter-intuitive implications for innovation. Comparing synthetic biology with, for example nanotechnology and GM crops, can provide some insights into the nature and impacts of future pressures on synthetic biology governance and could contribute to better decision making in future. Concerted international dialogue will be needed that takes account of the interplay between: scientists, medical professionals and engineers; policy makers and regulators; and citizens and advocacy groups of all shades of opinion.

Professor Joyce Tait is Director of the ESRC's Innogen Centre (Innovation in Genomics) which is a partnership between the University of Edinburgh and the Open University. This is an interdisciplinary programme which brings together social scientists, technology and policy analysts, economists and lawyers to study the far-reaching social and economic implications of advances in the life sciences.