Blog Post - Technology and Policy

Why Study the Life Sciences?

Today is a special day, not only considering you lot are graduating, simply also because you are entering the community of life scientists. Why pursue the life sciences? The pursuit of any scientific endeavor is noble, just the life sciences are particularly special. There are obvious practical reasons that the life sciences are valuable. The study of the life sciences lends of import insights into illness processes, and allows the development of novel therapeutics and innovative medical devices, thereby straight improving human health. The life sciences also enable an understanding of the environs and the other living species with whom we share the world; this knowledge guides conservation efforts and literally helps us to relieve our shared planet.

Nonetheless there are deeper reasons for studying the life sciences. The life sciences empower usa to reply fundamental questions about ourselves – Where did nosotros come from? What are we made of? What is the ground for the miracle of our beingness? What is our place in the natural earth, in the tree of life? Walking in the Maine forest, Henry David Thoreau wrote, "Talk of mysteries! — Think of our life in nature,—daily to be shown affair, to come in contact with information technology, — rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! the solid earth! the actual world! the common sense! Contact! Contact! Who are we? where are we?" Thoreau was a great naturalist, and he realized that the life sciences reveal the truth of our existence; the life sciences shine a calorie-free on our real identities, so that we discover our truthful reality.

Through the life sciences, we have learned that we all part of the human family, sharing the aforementioned bones genetic textile. Indeed, we are not just the stuff that dreams are made on, nosotros are the stuff that Deoxyribonucleic acid is fabricated on. We share the aforementioned molecular building blocks, derived from the same star dust. Moreover, the living species that environs us are non only our companions on earth, but besides our ancestors. If science is the search for truth, then in that location are no greater truths than these. In fact, the life sciences provide the most powerful arguments we have, for the most important issues of our club, bug such as social justice, ecology preservation, animal protection, globe peace, and cardinal man rights.

It is precisely for these reasons that the life sciences draws in knowledge-seekers and truth-seekers from diverse backgrounds. Because the life sciences reveal such central truths, the best scientific and engineering minds in history, regardless of discipline, eventually plow their attention to the biological sciences. For example, the prodigious engineer, architect, and painter Leonardo da Vinci, gained formal training in the anatomy of the human body, studying the muscles and tendons, and laying the foundations for mod biomechanics. The brilliant chemist Linus Pauling, once he had elucidated the nature of the chemical bond and introduced the concept of orbital hybridization and founded quantum chemistry, subsequently sought to make up one's mind the nature of biological molecules such as proteins; he wanted to know the structure of hemoglobin, the molecule coursing through our claret vessels. His findings laid the groundwork for molecular biology and molecular genetics. Even the great physicist Erwin Schrodinger, later on making basis-breaking discoveries in breakthrough theory and formulating the wave equation and winning a Nobel Prize for Physics, ultimately pursued the life sciences, looking at biological phenomena from the point of view of physics. In his volume entitled, "What is Life?" Schrodinger asked, "How can the events in space and time which take place inside the spatial boundary of a living organism be deemed for by physics and chemistry?" Indeed, all roads lead to the biological sciences.

Throughout my own instruction, I have felt the pull of the life sciences. In fact, the renowned chemical engineer and National University of Engineering member John Thousand. Prausnitz has noted, "If applied science is the application of science for homo benefit, so the engineer must exist a student not only of the application of science, but of human do good as well." Now that I teach biomedical applied science undergraduates at Harvard, I rely on my life sciences background to railroad train students in quantitative physiology, tissue engineering, and drug commitment. At every step of my career, my knowledge of life sciences has opened up a new earth, giving me a unique way of solving bug.

And so graduates, you should always be proud of your decision to study the life sciences; it is an honorable and relevant pursuit; the world needs you at present, more than than ever. Never forget the inspiration that drove y'all to study the life sciences in the commencement place. Your own life will exist filled with challenges, ones that yous cannot even anticipate now. But if y'all always remember that artless sense of wonder that inspired your love of biology, you will never exist lost. Instead of running a road race with others, wait out into the forest, look out into the field, take in the entire mural, look inside at yourself, and then beat your own path through the grass and leaves and copse; then you're only racing against yourself. Project your sense of service and your dear of biology outward to others, merely let your sense of accomplishment and success exist guided past your own internal compass. Finally, wherever you become and whatever you do, never forget that you accept the ability to bring nigh positive change in the world. Congratulations.

This mail is fatigued from Sujata Bhatia's commencement speech at the University of Delaware Department of Biological Sciences.

For Academic Citation: Bhatia, Sujata."Why Written report the Life Sciences?." Technology and Policy, June 26, 2015, https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/why-written report-life-sciences.

Sujata K. Bhatia