Nobel Prize Winners Help Spark Interdisciplinary Collaborations at Conference

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OKLAHOMA CITY – Scientists from a wide range of disciplines – including four Nobel Prize winners – gathered at the University of Oklahoma’s Web of Life Conference to spark interdisciplinary collaborations aimed at tackling complex diseases.

“Because diseases like cancer and diabetes do not exist in isolation, they won’t be solved by any one discipline, but by researchers from different areas working together. The Web of Life Conference is designed to facilitate crosstalk between disciplines, foster collaborations and inspire our next generation of researchers,” said Priyabrata Mukherjee, Ph.D., conference co-chair, a professor in the OU College of Medicine and researcher at OU Health Stephenson Cancer Center.

During the innovative conference, dozens of researchers from around the nation and from the OU Health Campus presented their research. The four Nobel Prize winners gave keynote addresses. They were: James P. Allison, Ph.D., of MD Anderson Cancer Center; Randy Schekman, Ph.D., of the University of California, Berkley; William G. Kaelin, M.D., of Harvard Medical School; and Drew Weissman, M.D., Ph.D., of Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Additional keynote speakers were Kristi Anseth, Ph.D., of the University of Colorado at Boulder; Dafna Bar-Sagi, Ph.D., of New York University Langone Health; and Rodney Tweten, Ph.D., of the OU College of Medicine, all members of the National Academy of Sciences.

Research focused on conditions including cancer, neurodegeneration and diabetes, as well as topics such as drug resistance, novel drug delivery systems and nanotechnology. In between presentations, researchers engaged in the conversations that conference organizers envisioned.

“We were so fortunate to have exceptional speakers at the Web of Life, including our own faculty members and graduate students,” said Resham Bhattacharya, Ph.D., conference co-chair, professor in the OU College of Medicine and researcher at OU Health Stephenson Cancer Center. “This was a unique opportunity to learn about exciting discoveries, some of which were presented for the first time, and to begin the discussions that will lead to interdisciplinary studies.”

The OU Health Campus has strategically developed many of its own research environments to cultivate such investigations across disciplines. Laboratory designs foster team approaches to research, and physicians interact with Ph.D. researchers to initiate ideas. Because the OU Health Campus has seven health professional colleges located closely together, partnerships have developed, for example, between allied health and cancer researchers and between pharmacy and public health researchers.

“We are creating a culture where new ideas can begin – where findings from one field can be applied to another,” Mukherjee said. “We witnessed that concept taking shape at the Web of Life conference. It takes all of us working together to develop new ways to prevent, diagnose and treat disease.”