A case study of the Ancientbiotics collaboration

Erin Connelly; Christina Lee; Jessica Furner-Pardoe; Charo del Genio; Freya Harrison

doi:10.1016/j.patter.2022.100632

A case study of the Ancientbiotics collaboration

Erin Connelly, Christina Lee, Jessica Furner-Pardoe, Charo del Genio, Freya Harrison

Research Centre for Fluid and Complex Systems

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

5 Citations (Scopus)

158 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Interdisciplinary collaboration is regarded as a desirable way of researching and, in some instances, even a requirement for academic teams and funding proposals. This paper explores the possibilities, but also the problems, of collaboration between different disciplines through a case study of the Ancientbiotics team. This team explores the potential of natural products contained in historical medical recipes. The search for clinically useful natural products in unusual places, such as historical medical practices, is a well-established endeavor in the scientific disciplines. The Ancientbiotics collaboration, largely based across UK institutions, takes this path a step forward in combining modern scientific knowledge of natural products with expertise from humanities to identify ingredient combinations. After 7 years of practice, the research has produced a variety of outcomes. This perspective will explore how the team worked within an interdisciplinary framework to advance investigation and application of historical medical recipes.

Original language	English
Article number	100632
Number of pages	8
Journal	Patterns
Volume	3
Issue number	12
Early online date	9 Dec 2022
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.patter.2022.100632
Publication status	Published - 9 Dec 2022

Bibliographical note

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/),
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited..

Funding

We would like to thank the attendees of the 2019 Microbiology Society focused meeting on European Ethnopharmacology for Antimicrobial Drug Discovery (organized by Olivia Corcoran, Freya Harrison, Rowena Jenkins, and Lori Snyder), of the 2014 Disease, Disability & Medicine in Medieval Europe conference (organized by Christina Lee, University of Nottingham), and of the 2014 Making the Medieval Relevant conference (organized by Conor Kostick, supported by the British Academy), the wider Ancientbiotics team, and all of our collaborators past and present. We thank Frances Watkins for sharing her observations on nettle preparation. We also thank Sarah Callaghan and three anonymous reviewers for constructive comments on an early version of the manuscript. This work was supported by an APEX award (Academies Partnership in Supporting Excellence in Cross-disciplinary research award), administered by the British Academy, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society (\u201Cthe Academies\u201D), and with generous support from the Leverhulme Trust, APX\\R1\\180053. E.C. and C.I.d.G. are supported by a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship, MR/T020652/1. All authors participated in the research projects mentioned herein. C.L. was responsible for funding acquisition of the APEX award. E.C. created the original draft. All authors contributed to the writing, review, and editing of subsequent drafts. All authors gave final approval for publication and agree to be held accountable for the work performed therein. The authors declare no competing interests. Erin Connelly is an assistant professor (research) in the School of Life Sciences, University of Warwick (UK), supported by a UK Research and Innovation Future Leaders Fellowship. Christina Lee is an associate professor in the School of English, University of Nottingham (UK). Jessica Furner-Pardoe is an early career research fellow collaborating between University of Warwick and UKHSA (UK). Charo I. del Genio is a Senior Lecturer in Statistical Physics in the Centre for Fluid and Complex Systems, Coventry University (UK). Freya Harrison is a reader in the School of Life Sciences, University of Warwick (UK). Please visit https://ancientbiotics.co.uk for further information.

Funders	Funder number
Royal Academy of Engineering, The
British Academy
The Royal Society
UK Research and Innovation
Not added	MR/T020652/1
Leverhulme Trust	APX\R1\180053

Keywords

AMR
DSML3: Development/pre-production: Data science output has been rolled out/validated across multiple domains/problems
collaboration
datamining
ethnopharmacology
history of medicine
interdisciplinary
medieval studies
network analysis

ASJC Scopus subject areas

General Decision Sciences

Access to Document

10.1016/j.patter.2022.100632Licence: CC BY

PublishedFinal published version, 898 KBLicence: CC BY
A case study of the Ancientbiotics collaborationFinal published version, 528 KBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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A case study of the Ancientbiotics collaboration

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Access to Document

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