Joined: Oct. 2005
The Biologic Institute is Expanding!
|Biologic Institute welcomes three European scientists this month, the first (we hope) of many.  Professor Matti Leisola, the Dean of Chemistry and Materials Science at Helsinki University of Technology in Finland, brings a wealth of experience on the structure and function of enzymes, including their responses to engineered changes. His research team has made a huge impact in their field, with well over a thousand references to their work in the scientific literature.|
Colin Reeves, Professor of Operational Research in the School of Mathematical and Information Sciences at Coventry University, expands our program of research on information theory and search algorithms. His work in this area has focused on genetic algorithms—search methods that borrow various principles from evolutionary biology. Connections of this kind between different fields provide opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration, which is nearly always a good thing.
The addition of Stuart Burgess likewise brings us to an exciting interface between disciplines. Professor Burgess is the Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Bristol. He’s a first-rate engineer, but one with an unusual fascination with biology. That’s the right combination of interests for designing things like robotic versions of flying insects.  Our interest, of course, is that you can’t come away from projects like that without new insights into the connection between life and design.
Maybe your expertise will be the next valuable addition. If so, we’d like to hear from you. We aren’t big (yet). But we keep seeing big opportunities.
So, that's a biochemist, a mathematician (sort of), and an engineer. Hm.
It is fun to dip into the various threads to watch cluelessness at work in the hands of the confident exponent. - Soapy Sam (so say we all)