Life's Journey: A 360 Experience
About the author:
Carla Molins Pitarch is a Creative Technologist, Experience designer, researcher & educator. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in science communication as a Marie Curie Fellow in the ChromDesign ITN at Elisava Research and UPF. Carla is working at the intersection of design, art, technology, and biology to bring a tangible instance to complex scientific concepts.
You can find more about her work here: https://carlamolins.com/
PUSHING FOR THE TRANSDISCIPLINARITY OF RESEARCH AND INNOVATION THROUGH A TRAINING NETWORK
Understanding human disease often means facing complex challenges that require a holistic approach to problem-solving.
Inter-,multi- and even trans-disciplinary research is essential in meeting these challenges, as it brings together different perspectives and expertise to tackle problems in a comprehensive manner.
The EU-funded Marie-Sklodowska Curie Action (MSCA) ChromDesign Innovative Training Network (ITN), coordinated by CRG and involving 11 European academic and private institutions and 6 partner organizations, is a prime example of how trans-disciplinary research can drive innovation and progress in the field of chromatin biology.
The scientific objectives encompass the characterization of the mechanisms and the impact of chromatin organization on gene regulation during celular differentiation in normal and pathologic states, to further understand human disease and identify novel therapeutic approaches.
Notwithstanding, ChromDesign aims to do so by seamlessly integrating into this process communicators and designers to develop innovative approaches for sharing these very specialized results not only to the scientific community, but also to a non-specialized audience.
Thus, the network brings together top international scientists and designers to tackle complex challenges in the field of chromatin biology while training and empowering 14 Early-Stage Researchers (ESRs) in state-of-the-art epigenetics research, but also transferable skills and science communication, thus highlighting one of the key strengths of the ChromDesign network: the intersection between science,
communication, and design.
A great example of the outcome of ChromDesign’s trans-disciplinarity is the innovative work done by Carla Molins-Pitarch, a creative technologist and experience designer who worked in the network as an ESR doing her PhD in ELISAVA Research, in Barcelona.
Carla, inspired by the work of the other ESRs on chromatin biology, created the experience «Life’s Journey, The Blocks That Build Us All’ with the objective of portraying a glance at the complexity of DNA and chromatin biology into a didactic experience that takes you through a trip from the complexity to the simplicity and beauty of the DNA.
In ChromDesign we are convinced that these trans-disciplinary approaches are very beneficial not only for the training of researchers, but to the future of science, driving innovation and providing valuable skills to everyone involved in the network.
We are excited to follow up on the impact of these approaches in the coming years and we highly encourage others to favour trans-disciplinarity as an inherent quality of science and research, and what better way than reflecting it in their main players: the researchers.