INSTITUTE FOR LIFE SCIENCES NURTURING INTERDISCIPLINARITY

“Most people now recognize that breaking down traditional boundaries between disciplines is highly productive,” said Professor Max Crispin, Director of the University’s Institute for Life Sciences (IfLS).

“So many breakthroughs come by taking expertise from different fields and applying them to develop novel and interdisciplinary research.

“The IfLS shows what can be achieved through this strategic cross-faculty model that nurtures interdisciplinarity.”

Established in 2011, the IfLS connects researchers from across the University and beyond, stimulating interdisciplinary research, education and enterprise.

The Institute acts as a hub for networking and life science enterprise activities and offers seed funding for pilot projects. IfLS interdisciplinary PhD studentships have also proven to be an effective mechanism for building long-term collaborations across the University.

Max, who is professor of Glycobiology, took over as IfLS Director from founding Director Professor Peter JS Smith in Summer 2023. He is joined by Deputy Directors Hywel Morgan, Professor of Bioelectronics, and Mary Barker, Professor of Psychology & Behavioural Science, whose appointment is helping to develop the Institute’s reach into the social sciences.

Community

One of the IfLS’s great strengths is the breadth of its membership, with over 400 members representing all five faculties. There is also strong engagement with regional partners including University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, Health Innovation Wessex, and Wessex Health Partners.

“IfLS is an integral part of the University’s interdisciplinary culture and has contributed to numerous external funding awards and real-world impacts, through seed-funding and by nurturing collaborations that have matured, often over many years,” continued Max.

One such initiative with its roots in the IfLS is the flagship National Biofilms Innovation Centre (NBIC) (see opposite). Another interdisciplinary champion is Sumeet Mahajan, Professor of Molecular BioPhotonics and Imaging, whose work attracts major EPSRC funding (see page 14).

Although IfLS pilot funding awards are modest, they allow the Institute to “support genuinely high-risk, exploratory work which has the potential to be very disruptive,” explained Max.

Pointing to Dr Owen Rackham’s work in computational biology, where he is seeking to generate completely new cell types through modelling of gene expression networks (see page 16), Max said:

“What we want to see are those big leaps forward where suddenly new spaces are opened up.”

With an eye to developing the interdisciplinary researchers of the future, the IfLS offers up to four PhD studentships annually, along with two each through the South Coast Bioscience Doctoral Training Partnership and the Translational Biomedical Sciences Doctoral Partnership.

Regional and national influence

With its established network of partners and collaborators, the IfLS is a key contributor to the regional life sciences sector and works to influence national and international policy.

IfLS projects sponsored by Local Enterprise Partnerships and Health Innovation Wessex to better understand the region’s life sciences needs and capabilities resulted in FortisNet. This regional network connects and supports enterprise, academia, healthcare, and other stakeholders such as local government and charities, to collaborate on musculoskeletal health research and development.

Building on that success, My Age is one of eleven UK Ageing Networks funded by the BBSRC and the MRC to increase healthspan (the number of years lived in good health) and set the future direction of ageing research.

Southampton scientists are researching mechanisms to build and maintain muscle resilience – poor musculoskeletal health is a leading cause of early exit from the workforce and loss of independence in later life.

“There is a national push to support healthy ageing and improve health expectancy, and we are now well placed to be part of that,” explained Max.

In 2023 the MyAge network was invited by Sense About Science to present a policy briefing, ‘A lifelong approach to muscle resilience: implications for policy and practice’ to MPs and parliamentary staff. Meanwhile work to highlight the strength of the South’s life sciences sector resulted in, ‘Life Sciences in the central South’ report, a major policy paper published by the Southern Policy Centre in 2022.

Responding to the shift by funding councils towards supporting interdisciplinary regional networks, and contributing to the University’s Civic objectives, the IfLS also

played a key role in establishing Wessex Health Partners. This is a strategic regional partnership representing Integrated Care Boards, universities and NHS organisations, to accelerate better health and care through research, innovation and training.

Sharing success

IfLS also hosts the Royal Society Entrepreneur in Residence, currently Dr Kam Pooni, CEO of Glyconics and a specialist in medical technologies and medical device regulations. Kam’s expertise is helping researchers better understand the business environment.

Recent spin-out successes that have been supported by the IfLS include Curve Therapeutics (see below) and Renovos, a regenerative medicine company that is pioneering the nanoclay gel technology platform, RENOVITE® to address the unmet need for long term tissue regeneration.

Looking ahead, Max is determined to capture emerging opportunities for the IfLS.

“One of the first things I did as Director was to invite people from across the University to suggest new research themes. We have already introduced a new cross-cutting theme in global health, and we’re actively searching out opportunities with the revolution that is occurring with artificial intelligence.

“The University of Southampton is an exciting environment for interdisciplinary research and, as IfLS Director, I am delighted to help foster new research initiatives across the University and beyond.”

Read more about the Institute for Life Sciences (IfLS)

www.southampton.ac.uk/research/ institutes-centres/institute-for-lifesciences