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Newton Meets Darwin at the Indoor Microbiome

William W NazaroffCivil & Environmental Engineering Dept.

University of California, Berkeley

Microbiomes of Built EnvironmentsIndoor Air 2011

Austin, Texas, USA8 June 2011 Charles Darwin (1809-1882)Isaac Newton (1643-1727)

Image sources: nndb.com; treehugger.com; summitpediatrics.blogspot.com; h2it.org; jaymecarleton.org; housevaluequotes.com

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Scope

• Observations about collaborative research

• Attributes of successful joint efforts

• Collaborating on indoor microbiome:Opportunities and challenges

• My background (mostly Newtonian!):– Physics (BA), EECS (MEng), environmental engineering science (PhD)

– Civil & Environmental Engineering faculty since 1989

– Involved in many collaborative projects & programs (small teams and large)

– Chaired Energy & Resources Group at Berkeley for 4 y

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The inspiration behind the talk’s title …

Source: John Harte, Physics Today (October 2002).

Physicists and ecologists approach their crafts from different intellectual traditions, asexemplified by the differing values they attach to the search for simplification anduniversality. As a particle theorist by training, currently engaged in the study of ecologyand global change, I have witnessed dysfunctional consequences of this bimodallegacy. I argue here for a synthesis of what I call the Newtonian and Darwinianapproaches to science.

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Harte’s description of our “bimodal legacy”

Disdain for caricatures of natureCentral role for idealized systems(e.g., PV = nRT)

Mostly descriptive, explanatoryPredictive (quantum mechanicsnotwithstanding)

Weak trends;reluctance to seek laws

Universal patterns;search for laws

Primacy of contingency andcomplex historical factors

Primacy of initial conditions

The more you look,the more complex it gets

The more you look,the simpler it gets

EcologyPhysics

Source: John Harte, Physics Today (October 2002).

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Harte: Elements of a synthesis

Sources: John Harte, Physics Today (October 2002); Consider a Spherical Cow (1988).

• Simple, falsifiable models (*)

• Search for patterns and laws

• Embrace the science of place (†)

(*) It is the mark of an instructedmind to rest satisfied with the degreeof precision which the nature of thesubject permits and not to seek anexactness where only anapproximation of the truth ispossible. — Aristotle

(†) Place-centered studiesprovide the best means wehave for going beyond patternto process — for identifying theactual mechanisms at work.— Harte

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• The indoor environmentresearch communityoperates at theintersection of threedomains

• These domains haveindependent intellectualtraditions and professionalcommunities

Does Harte’s analysis apply to indoor microbiome?

• Newton and Darwin don’t live here.

Health

EnvironmentBuildings

Indoor environments

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Observations about collaborative research

• “Multidisciplinary” is a woefully inadequate term to describethe multifaceted and richly nuanced nature of collaborationsinvolving researchers from different backgrounds.

Humanities Social Sciences Natural Sciences

HistoryAmericanStudies

Art History

Film

MusicLanguageStudies

ReligiousStudies

ComparativeLiterature

ClassicsSociology

Psychology

Demography

PoliticalScience

Rhetoric Economics

Anthropology

An AcademicPhylogenetic

Tree (conceptual)

Molecular and Cell BiologyChemistry

Physics

Mathematics

Geology

Statistics

Integrative Biology

Ecology

Biochemistry

Atmospheric Science

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Observations about collaborative research

• Successful collaborations seem to occur more often in smallgroups (2-3 senior investigators) rather than in large teams (*)

(*) Some possible reasons: High transaction costs for rich communication;high personal responsibility in small teams

Image sources: collaborationblog.org; ctit.utwente.nl

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Some key ingredients of successful collaborations

• High level of mutual trust and respect (*)• Commitment to teach and to learn w/ patience & persistence• Generousness in sharing credit• Strengths of one complements weaknesses of other• High dose of student involvement (Harte’s “gluons”)

(*) On mutualrespect →

Comic source: xkcd.com

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Indoor microbiome: Opportunities

• DNA-based measurementmethods are game changing

• Sloan Foundation funding isgood: quantity and quality

• Fundamental and seminalimprovements inunderstanding therelationship between indoorenvironmental quality andhuman well being appearwithin reach

Figure source: A Spor et al., Nature Reviews Microbiology 9, 279, 2011.

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Indoor microbiome: Some challenges

• Do we know enough to ask the right questions?

• Will the support be adequate to sustain a longer-term effort?

• Are we sufficiently iconoclastic to counteract academic inertia?

D Altshuler et al., A haplotype map of thehuman genome, Nature 437, 1299, 2005;2369 citations.

M Ezzati et al., Selected major risk factors andglobal and regional burden of disease, Lancet360, 1347, 2002; 870 citations.

Well-cited genomics paper. Most cited “indoor*” paper, ever.

Figures from ISI Web of Science.

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Newtonian indoor microbiome collaboration

Jordan Peccia, PIYale University,

Chemical Engineering

Nina Hospodsky,PhD candidate

Kyle Bibby,PhD student

Naomichi Yamamoto,Postdoctoral scholar

Hamid Rismani-Yazdi,Postdoctoral scholar

Jing Qian,Postdoctoral scholar

Bill Nazaroff,UC Berkeley

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Collaboration is producing fruit, after 3 y…

• Research team synthesizes relevant expertise:

— Modern, DNA-based analytical methods applied tobioaerosols (Peccia lab)

— Aerosol dynamics, especially in indoor environments(Nazaroff)

• Research articles in late stages of preparation priorto journal submission:

— J Qian et al., Size distributed emission rates of airbornebacteria and fungi in indoor air due to occupancy.

— D Hospodsky et al., Dense human occupancy as a sourceof indoor airborne bacteria.

— N Yamamoto et al., Particle size distributions andseasonal concentrations of selected airborne fungi in thenortheastern United States.

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Steven Lindow(PMB)

Berkeley Indoor Microbial Ecology Research Center

Tom Bruns, PI (PMB)

Rachel Adams,Postdoctoral scholar John Taylor (PMB)

Gary Anderson(LBNL)

Ed Arens(Arch)

Allen Goldstein(ESPM)

Bill Nazaroff(CEE)

Seema Bhangar,Postdoctoral scholar

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Galileo

CurieOppenheimer

NewtonPasteur

HawkingEinstein

SaganEdison

AristotleTyson

Dawkins

Darwin

Newton met Darwin at the scientists’ Last Supper!

But, with this seating arrangement, did they get a chance to talk?

Source: sciencewallpaper.com (Nick Farrantello)