Interdisciplinarity: Topping the charts

TOPping off meiosis

Double-strand breaks (DSBs) threaten chromosome integrity. The most accurate repair of DSBs is by homologous recombination (HR), catalyzed by recombination proteins such as Rad51. Three papers in this issue of Molecular Cell (Fasching et al., 2015; Kaur et al., 2015; Tang et al., 2015) now reveal the role of three of these proteins in budding yeast: Sgs1 (BLM homolog), Top3 (TOPIIIα homolog), a...

TOPping up ATR Activity

The nuclear protein kinase ATR is a key regulator of genome integrity that functions at checkpoints for damaged or incompletely replicated DNA. In this issue of Cell, Kumagai et al. (2006) shed light on the molecular mechanism that controls ATR. They report that a physical interaction between ATR and a distinct domain of TopBP1 greatly enhances ATR kinase activity.

Science, interdisciplinarity, and the society

Scientific research is organized within a range of different disciplines. Besides some historical contingence, the recent landscape of academics reflects mainly divisions between different objects, terminologies, theories, and methods, which are represented by the specific disciplines. Correspondingly, a huge number of (sub-) disciplines have been established until now. Research within these di...

Interdisciplinarity and the Prospect of Complexity Interdisciplinarity and the Prospect of Complexity : The Tests of Theory

William Newell’s theory of interdisciplinary studies is a timely proposal since complexity is a keyword in contemporary descriptions of interdisciplinarity. Like any other theory, it is subject to a series of questions: (1) Is the theory generalizable, and is it reductive? (2) What relationship does it have to prior theories? (3) Does the theory drive practice, or vice versa? and (4) Is it frui...

Interdisciplinarity in Osteogenesis Imperfecta