Integrated biomedical sciences
Lectures 1&2 history and interdisciplinary biomedical sciences
The course is about the integration of different biomedical disciplines
- Biomedicine is a branch of medical science that applies biological and physiological
principles to clinical practice; it is often conceptualized as the search for
therapeutic/medical innovations in the laboratory.
Non-biological explanations: spiritual reasoning for the diseases instead of biology
- Divine (human sin) → penance, persescution
- Conjunction Jupiter, mars and saturn → supersticion, precautios
- Bad air, rotting → clearing the air with herbs, quarantine (40 days)
- Balance of the body
- Antibiotics
Important scientist who contributed to scientific revolution:
- 17th century scientific revolution → Boerhave (fluids are pumped around) and Harvey
(hart is a pump) → ‘Body is a machine’
- Early 19th century: medical technology → Von Liebig laboratory – Giessen, Cellulaire
pathologie (Virchow), Microscope improvement (Ernst Abbe)
- Laboratory revolution: LabarRobert Koch (discovered tuberculosis, cholera, Koch
postulates), Louis Pasteur (micro-organisms, pasteurisation) and Alexander Fleming
(penicillin)
Biomedical paradigm: Basic and clinical research are linked: the production of knowledge
about therapeutics always requires a clinical phase (Löwy, 1996)
Biomedicine as practice:
- Diagnosis and etiology → blood, genes, etc
- Clinical trials → the single most important event in integrating hospitals and patients
into the biomedical enterprise was development of randomized control trials RCT
o Evidence medicine is using the best evidence (coming from RCT). Biomed as a
group they share on a big part on laboratory research and RCT’s to develop
the ‘truth’.
- Risk and enhancement → moving beyond the rale of disease → example: hormone
replacement therapy for woman in the menopause
Reductionism: is a metaphor to break down the parts and observe then as separate parts. A
whole organism is ‘nothing more’ than the sum of its parts. We try to isolate the things we
want to investigate because the organism is best investigated by its part.
- Evidence based medicine
- Modelling
- Holism → also taken into account other factors
,Social - public health – dimension → HIV, corona and AMR. The parts we investigated
evidence is not always good for interventions (tested on young boys, does it also work on old
women?) The body is changing.
There is a need for interdisciplinarity: Biomedical sciences aims to improve quality of life
through medical innovation. → Thus requires active collaboration to ensure pieces of
knowledge are together, and it fits the needs and it can be implemented.
On its onset interdisciplinary → we also need disciplinary research!
- There became a need to become specialist → disciplines in universities → result: a
lot of people are focused on a discipline, thus developing scientific disciplines.
Scientific discipline has:
- Ontology: the art of being, the ‘properties’ of thing; what are objects anyway?
- Epistemology: the art of knowing,
o Positivism/objectivism: we can describe the world objectively in laws and
rules. Related to scientific revolution → more dominant perspective in
biomedical sciences.
o Constructivism (more dominant): you are constructing the truth, based on all
the ideas you have. You see the world filtered. We perceive the world as it
appears to us. Truth and meaning are constructed by the person/researchers.
Multiple realities are experienced, and meaning is not stable
- Conceptology: the art of understanding; the meaning of definitions; which
words/language we use
Research design →
Disciplinary cultures:
- The complex total of knowledge, beliefs, values, habits, practices that determine how
groups interpreted world
Interdisciplinarity = collaboration between scientific disciplines
• Mono-disciplinary → addressing research question from your specific field
• Multi-disciplinary → more people addressing the research question from different
disciplines
• Interdisciplinary → not looking at the same research question, but coming from
different disciplines; what is a relevant question we can think of together? & to
analyze and interpret findings together for good integration (beta with gamma/alpha
disciplines) → prevents risk of analytical thinking and fragmentation of knowledge.
• Transdisciplinary → includes non-academic environment (societal partners) → they
also have pieces of the knowledge available
,Constructivism: latoy studied the laboratory: everyone that works in the lab sees the world
filtered with their believes. Every lab develops their own disciplinary culture. Why do we
need interdisciplinary?
The meaning of interdisciplinary:
- Collaboration between scientific disciplines. Not just studying the same thing but
think about it together, intergrade and analyse the findings together.
Why interdisciplinary?
- Source of inspiration: broadening of horizons
o New combinations lead to innovation
- Addresses complex scientific questions that cannot be answered by monodiscipline
- Improve research quality
- Research funding
Complex adaptive systems: holism?
- Not study things when isolated but in its holism (the whole is the sum of it’s part)
- Diseases are often influences by the environment around us, how is it interacting
with us? → prevention
Epidemiological triangle:
- agent (cause of disease)
- environment (favourable)
- host (susceptibility)
Positivism/objectivism VS Constructivism/interpretavism
- Positivism/objectivism: reality can be observed, presenting facts as truth, knowledge
can be formulated into laws
o Single reality, external, waiting to be found
, - Constructivism: truth and meaning are constructing by the person/researcher
(subjects) and interpretations of the world (object)
o Multiple realities, and meaning is not stable
o Example: experiencing pain: the doctor measures 10 sec but for the patient it
felt much longer → what is the ‘truth’? what time is more important?
Covid: different perspectives, different types of knowledge → we need to intergrade them
- It is important to understand different perspectives
Example: addiction
- Sociological: pressure from friends or society
- Psychology: negativity, lack of will power, escapism
- Biology: genetic factors, level of neurotransmitters
Different dimensions:
- Monodisciplinary → Interdisciplinary
- Fundamental (producing knowledge) → Applied
(to address a social thing)
- Specialist → generalist
,How to work interdisciplinary?
Feel comfortable with the use of different languages various frameworks of certain concepts
and being able to switch easily
• Get to know various interdisciplinary studies
• Get experienced in working with others in interdisciplinary modus
• Learn to work with methods and techniques from various disciplines (and research
branches)
Challenges:
• Language, example: biomarker means something different in biology and chemistry
• Culture, example: publication styles
• Routines, work solitary or in teams
• Norms, hierarchy of disciplines
• Time, effort and money to find interesting questions, bridge the different worlds
• People don’t see the benefit
• Takes you out of your comfort zone (unpleasant, oud en vertrouwd)
• Lack of incentives (motivation)→ few journals with high impact factor
Facilitators
• Feeling that there is something to gain scientifically (intrinsic motivation)
• External incentives: financial support for interdisciplinary research
• Opportunity to meet
• Attitude (openness)
• Organizational support (continued interaction through workshops/meetings)
Citizen science → include the citizens, example: bird counting individually in your garden
Important for exam: what is interdisciplinarity (and difference between the others),
reductionism, objectivism/constructivism and some historical facts
Take home massages:
- Explore fields and become an expert in interdisciplinary
- Reductionism, why important in biomed?
- Contribution of flemming? Exam
, Lecture 3 Core concepts and processes in immunology by Dr. Joke den
Haan
Immunity VS tolerance (activation and inactivation)
Pathogens: virus, bacterium, fungus, protozoal parasite (one or two hosts) and multicellular
parasite (multiple life cycles). Different pathogens requires different immune rresponses.
Innate immune system
Role of the innate immune system: eradication of the pathogen and alerting the adaptive
immune system → fast response with limited specificities
Complement system (adaptive helps the innate):
1. Alternative route
1. Spontanous activation → by proteins on surface of cells
2. Suppressed by ‘self’
3. First to act
2. Lectin route
a. Mannose binding Lectin (MBL) binds to carbohydrates on pathogen
b. Second to act
3. Classical route
a. React on IgM antibodies and
C reactive protein (CRP) via C1q
b. Third to act
→ all complement activation routes converge
on C3 → this results in complement fixation and
production of anaphylatoxins.
THEN Effector functions:
1. Recruitment of inflammatory cells
2. Opsonization of pathogens,
facilitating uptake and killing by pathogens
3. Perforation of pathogen cell membrane
→ membrane attack complex
Result: Death pathogen
