A new biology

WASHINGTON -- A report released today by the National Research Council calls on the United States to launch a new multiagency, multiyear, and multidisciplinary initiative to capitalize on the extraordinary advances recently made in biology and to accelerate new breakthroughs that could solve some of society's most pressing problems -- particularly in the areas of food, environment, energy, and health. (press release)

If you'd like to read the whole report, A New Biology for the 21st Century, it's available from the National Academies Press. Here's just a little bit from the Preface to the report.

[T]he essence of the New Biology is integration--re-integration of the many subdisciplines of biology, and the integration into biology of physicists, chemists, computer scientists, engineers, and mathematicians to create a research community with the capacity to tackle a broad range of scientific and societal problems. The committee chose biological approaches to solving problems in the areas of food, environment, energy and health as the most inspiring goals to drive the development of the New Biology. But these are not the only problems that we both hope and expect a thriving New Biology to be able to address; fundamental questions in all areas of biology, from understanding the brain to carbon cycling in the ocean, will all be more tractable as the New Biology grows into a flourishing reality. Given the fundamental unity of biology, it is our hope and our expectation that the New Biology will contribute to advances across the life sciences.