Nexxus Scotland

Dr Pier Frisco, Lecturer in Computer Science & Mathematics, Heriot-Watt University

Q: For those of us who don't know - what does your job entail?

As a lecturer at the School of Mathematical and Computer Science (MACS), at Heriot-Watt University, I undertake research, teach at graduate and undergraduate level, and participate in the academic administration of the School.
I am a computer scientist by training whose research has always been at the interface of computer science, mathematics and biology. This is reflected in my employment in both the Computer Science and the Mathematics Departments and by collaborating with mathematicians and biologists.

Knowledge in these 3 disciplines is present in the 2 complementary branches of my research - one in which mathematical and computer science concepts and methodologies are used to model biological processes, and the other in which biological processes are the inspirations for formal mathematical models of computation. One of the aims of the first branch is to create new abstract tools allowing us to improve our understanding of biology, while one of the aims of the second branch is to create computers using cells. Despite their different aims, these two research directions have a lot in common.

Q: Tell us about a typical day (or is there no such thing?).

A typical day starts with an approximate mental plan. At the end of the day only a little part of that plan has been implemented while the remaining part of the day followed no plan at all - that's the fun part!
My working style ranges from being a stereotypical mathematician (locked in my silent office, surrounded by books and research papers, with a pencil in my hand and sheets of notes) to being part of a group (interacting with scientists having different backgrounds, contacting possible sponsors for scientific events, applying for funding etc).
The multidisciplinary nature of my research adds extra challenges to my job - it is not always easy to communicate with scientists having different backgrounds.

Extra challenges can mean extra rewards, though. I am very proud of being able to understand and speak the languages of 3 disciplines. Once, during a brainstorming meeting a biologist described a problem he had difficulty solving, and then a mathematician spoke about the methodologies he specialised in. Neither person realised that they were describing the same phenomena using different languages until I ‘translated' one language into the other.

Q: So what's taken up most of your time recently?

A few things. I am trying to develop a new theory of biological networks which links structural/static measures of these networks to their dynamical properties and aims to provide a higher level understanding of the evolutionary forces that led biological networks to be the way they are. The resulting theory will be of great help in the forward and reverse engineering of biological networks and will contribute to the transformation of biology into a quantitative science such as physics or chemistry. I am very excited by the possible outcomes of this work. I started this work alone but now have a computer scientist and a mathematician collaborating with me.

I also work with two experimental biologists on a cell computer. After years of discussions we finally have the description of a device using living cells to solve problems. We submitted a manuscript about this to a conference and are applying for funding to implement the device.

Together with colleagues at MACS, I am also looking into re-launching our MSc in Bioinformatics and identifying what content potential applicants would want. I believe that interdisciplinary work is one of the ways forward in science and that ‘interdisciplinary minds' need to be created.

Q: What's on the cards for the next few months?

I would like to obtain initial results on the theory of networks, see the first steps of our cell computer, and get the MSc in Bioinformatics up and running. Ideally, I would also like to organise a summer school in synthetic biology - a project that 3 colleagues in other Edinburgh institutions and I tried to organise in 2009, but that became a victim of the economic crisis.

Q: What would you want to do if you weren't doing this job?

Any job requiring independence and international collaboration, intellectual challenges, reading, lecturing, travelling, meeting people with similar and completely different interests, or writing books. Any job where the way you look, the way you dress, your country of origin, your religious ideas and political ideologies do not matter.

For further information, contact Pier:
T: 0131 451 8241, E: pier@macs.hw.ac.uk