Biology is complex and diverse, so scientific research approaches need to be too

The beautiful, fascinating and often perplexing world around us grows from intricate and convoluted interactions of millions of pieces. As scientists, we work to understand and describe the parts and interactions of these systems.

Scientific understanding is only as good as the questions we ask. Observing the world from a variety of viewpoints and asking questions from a diversity of perspectives helps us recognize and understand biological complexity. Science, and our own experience, tells us that diverse collaborations lead to better questions and more innovative solutions — but diversity in research is under threat.

A major advancement in modern biology, specifically in the world of modern genetics that our research team works in, has been the realization that genes are far more complicated than we thought 20 years ago. When the human genome was first sequenced in 2001, scientists realized that each person’s DNA contained around 20,000 genes. Earlier estimates had been between 80,000 and 100,000.

This drastic downsize may seem like a step back in complexity, but the reduced number means genes must be more complex in order to fulfil multiple roles and functions. There are fewer genes, but each gene has a complicated set of multiple functions modulated through intricate, interconnected and interactive gene-regulation mechanisms.

Model species, surprising discoveries

Our research group studies gene regulation using the fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) as a model species — a non-human species studied extensively to reveal more about other organisms. Flies, like humans, have two copies of each chromosome, each copy with a full set of genes. Typically, regulation of each copy has been assumed to be independent.

Unexpectedly, our research has found that in fruit flies, the copies on separate chromosomes physically interact to modulate each other’s regulation. This means that the chromosomes aren’t independent: they co-regulate in a way that depends on genome structure, or what we call chromosome architecture.

This form of inter-chromosomal gene regulation, called transvection, was originally described in the 1950s, but is largely unknown. Its potential role to drive biological complexity is underappreciated because its effects are often (but not always) subtle and generally overshadowed by “typical” mechanisms of gene regulation along a single chromosome, cis-regulation.

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Complex genetic interactions

Our transvection research focuses on subtle differences between individuals and environments. Too often, biology assumes that phenomena are simple, uniform and discreet.

A classic example, taught in high school biology classes, demonstrates this thinking. Austrian biologist Gregor Mendel studied genetics in pea plants to propose dominant and recessive hereditary traits. His data was a little too clean, too good to be true: Mendel’s peas were either wrinkled or round, yellow or green.

Genetics is works in more complex ways: think of eye colour. Our eyes are not a dichotomous brown or blue. Colour varies in a spectrum of shades of blues, greens, grays, hazels and browns.

Similarly, we have shown that transvection, itself an unexpected twist, varies subtly and substantially, in unexpected ways. Recognizing that inter-chomosomal regulation was even possible, let alone could itself be modulated and variable, meant looking at our results from a non-typical view point, a different perspective.

Our research into stress biology has drawn similar conclusions; diverse responses are the norm and appreciating this variability is absolutely fundamental to understanding the system.

Differences between male and female biologies

In our research into metabolism, we have repeatedly found significant and substantial differences between male and females. For example, in recent unpublished data, we find that differences between male and female fruit fly responses to metal toxicity were as large as we would have expected to occur between different species.

Past conventional wisdom in the field assumed that the biology in the two sexes was interchangeable, with females essentially being just hypervariable males, although recent research in our lab and others is broadly pushing back against this misconception.

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The male and female responses are similar but distinct, and this is an important point. To understand biology, our research indicates, we need to identify, appreciate and study these subtle differences in order to produce more thorough scientific investigations.

Unexpected complexity

Our research regularly reveals unexpected biological complexity and, not coincidentally, the studies listed above were all collaborations. The technical complexity of research often requires involving experts in multiple disciplines.

A typical project can involve half a dozen or more experiments and methods, ranging from biochemistry to genetics to life history, and techniques from enzyme kinetic assays to mass spectrometry and DNA sequencing.

We are part of a genetics research group at Laurentian University whose diversity has greatly strengthened the quality and originality of contributions we have made to the field. In our experience, diverse collaborations combining different perspectives and viewpoints lead to innovative conclusions.

The literature bears this out: a series of large-scale studies involving millions of researchers and publications repeatedly show that diverse groups of scientists ask more interesting, perceptive and innovative questions and pose more interesting solutions.

Diversity and innovation

But this diversity-innovation connection is under attack in the current social and political climate. This has been most visible under the current political regime in the United States, but is also present here in Canada.

If successful, these attacks will narrow the perspective of scientific research and cripple scientific advances. Current diversity is the result of decades of programs fighting generations of systematic discrimination. Many researchers have been making research a more diverse and inclusive place.

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Sustainability is essential to the long-term health of scientific research. The research, and our own experiences, clearly shows that diverse groups of researchers conduct more creative, innovative and impactful science. Visibility in scientific research is important to ensure its sustainability. More young students will pursue careers in research if they can see themselves in that role.

Our hope is that a broader appreciation of the importance of diversity in research, will lead to greater community and political, support for research programs that recognize the fundamental importance of diversity, equity and inclusion.

The biological world is a beautifully diverse and complex place. To truly understand that world, the research laboratory must to be, too.