Lecture 1

Interdisciplinary Nature

• Integration of multiple disciplines to address complex issues in biomedical sciences

• Culture

  • Beliefs, values, habits, practices that determine how groups interpreted the world

• Why

  • Inspiration / broadening of horizons

  • Combinations lead to innovation

  • Address complex questions that are unanswerable from a monodiscipline

  • Improve research quality / enriches

  • (Research funding)

Biomedicine

• Search for therapeutic/medical innovations in the lab

• Branch of medical science applying biological and physiological principles to clinical practice.

Origins of Disease

Understanding the origin of diseases is crucial for treatment and prevention.

Biomedicine as practice

• Diagnosis, Etiology, interventions

  • Increased focused on metrics (cholesterol, genes) rather then symptoms

• Clinical trials / meta-analysis

  • Important in integrating hospitals/patients into biomedical science

  • Randomized clinical trial (RCT)

• Risk and Enhancement

  • Hormone replacement therapy, started as therapy for menopause, became skin treatment of postmenopausal women

Laboratory Movement

The shift in medical education where practical laboratory experience became essential for students.

Biomedical Paradigm

A framework that emphasizes the biological basis of health and disease.

Reductionism

• Fixing individual parts to address the whole system

  • Foundational to evidence-based medicine

• Ontological → organism is ‘nothing more’ than the sum of its parts

• Epistemological → the organism is best explained by reference to its parts

• Methodological → the organism is best investigated by its parts

Evidence-Based Medicine

A practice that relies on scientific evidence, including meta-analysis, to guide clinical decisions.

Personalized Medicine

Approach that tailors medical treatment to individual characteristics, moving beyond traditional evidence-based methods

Preventative Treatments

Interventions aimed at preventing disease, which can include lifestyle changes alongside medical treatments.

Interdisciplinarity

The collaboration of different disciplines to create solutions to complex health issues

Epidemiology

The study of how diseases affect the health and illness of populations, integrating biology and mathematics.

Complex Adaptive System

A theory that emphasizes the dynamic interactions within society that influence health and disease.

Epidemiological Triangle

Model illustrating the interaction of host, agent, and environment in the development of disease.

First 1000 Days

A critical period in maternal and child health where nutrition and stress can impact development.

Sensitive Periods

Key developmental windows, especially in early brain development, that are crucial for health outcomes.

Objectivism - Positivism

• Research perspective that views reality as observable and measurable, leading to factual conclusions

• Presenting facts as truth

• Knowledge can be formulated into laws

• Single reality, external, waiting to be found

Constructivism - Interpretavism

• Research perspective that views reality subjectively, shaped by individual perspectives and experiences

• Truth/meaning are constructed by person/researcher (subjects)

• Interpretations of the world (object)

• Researchers view the world through their refernce frame

• Meaning is unstable, different subjects look through different glasses → different realities

Quality of Life

• Biomedical sciences aims to improve quality of life through medical innovation

• Requiring active collaboration to ensure pieces of knoweldge are together, it fits the needs and it can be implemented

Language in Interdisciplinary Work

• Understanding and clarifying terminology across different disciplines to facilitate collaboration

• Time, effort and money

  • Find interesting questions to bridge the different worlds and come to a synthesis

Dimensions in interdisciplinarity

• Monodisciplinary ←→ Transdisciplinary

• Fundamental ←→ Applied