Best Practices for Science Team Collaboration

Communication between science and IT teams is hampered by technical jargon. An effective strategy to facilitate alignment is to define a boundary of understanding and the sphere of what one cares to control. In a simplified view, imagine a line with IT and science at the opposite ends. The boundary of understanding is the middle point where the teams meet. This is as far as IT can comfortably understand the science and vice versa. When communicating to a partner team, details beyond their boundary of understanding should be abstracted away. You may encounter teams that have true or perceived understanding of another’s area of expertise. The question to pose is - “What is important for you to control? Why?”. Defining the sphere of control gives teams authority to move fast. Avoid unnecessary negotiations. If you are a science team, think of all computational work as software operating on data in a sequence of steps. The scientific questions need to be abstracted away. Think tools, files, speed and costs. Meet your IT team at their boundary of understanding. For IT teams, ask about software, process, user experience, performance and cost. Here is a made up research project - “We use FancyTool for protein folding to understand structural implications of genomic variants of the ABC3 gene identified by NGS implicated in disease X”. Interesting but hard to comprehend for all teams. Let’s restate the same in terms that both teams understand and care about - “We generate data at the lab. Output is in FASTA format up to 100GB per experiment. Data are processed with a community pipeline from nf-core. We manually inspect each step on our laptops. The pipeline must complete in < 12 hrs. We will submit each file to FancyTool using Jupyter Notebooks. We use StructureViewer to examine the output on our laptops. FancyTool must be always available and we want to get the fastest possible turnaround. Cost is not an issue“. Now that is a great starting point! #cloud #research #computationalbiology #IT #collaboration #science

🧵The most underrated superpower in science: Bioinformaticians and wet biologists working together. Here’s why it matters. 1/ Great discoveries don’t come from code or pipettes alone. They come from collaboration. Wet lab and dry lab. Side by side. 2/ Too many bioinformaticians treat data as abstract. But data has context. It comes from messy, imperfect biology. 3/ A PCA plot shows an outlier? The reason might not be in your code. It might be in the lab. 4/ I once found a ChIP-seq sample that didn’t cluster. Looked like junk. Turns out the chromatin was degraded after IP. 5/ Another time: ATAC-seq data looked off. Low TSS enrichment score. It made perfect sense—once I talked to the experimentalist. That’s the point. You can’t clean up your data until you understand how it was made. And you can’t understand it alone. 7/ I learned most of my immunology by asking immunologists. Over coffee. At their bench. In the hallway. 8/ They explained the different CD4, CD8 T cells. They showed me why a antigen-specific population made sense. And where it didn’t. 9/ This kind of collaboration isn’t optional. It’s how you avoid mistakes. It’s how your analysis gains depth. 10/ Want your findings to make biological sense? Don’t guess. Ask. 11/ Zoom meetings help, but they’re not enough. In-person communication builds trust and speeds up clarity. 12/ You’ll get better feedback. You’ll find mistakes faster. And you’ll build something that actually matters. 13/ Key takeaways: • Know the experiment, not just the data • Talk early, talk often • Be humble about what you don’t know • Go to the lab if you can 14/ Action items: • If you're a bioinformatician: talk to the people behind the samples • If you're a biologist: explain the details to your analyst • Don’t silo the science 15/ Every discovery worth making lives where wet biology meets dry analysis. That’s the handshake that matters most. I hope you've found this post helpful. Follow me for more. Subscribe to my FREE newsletter to learn bioinformatics https://lnkd.in/erw83Svn

Collaborating with other researchers can be incredibly rewarding, but it also comes with its own set of challenges—especially when your team spans different countries, time zones, and disciplines. Here are some tips to help you build strong and productive research partnerships: Establish Clear Roles & Responsibilities: From the outset, define who is responsible for what. Clear roles prevent overlap and ensure that everyone knows their tasks and deadlines. Draft a shared document outlining these details. Pro Tip: Consider using Google Workspace or Microsoft Office 365 for collaborative documents that everyone can access and edit in real-time. Set Up Regular Communication: Frequent check-ins are essential to keep everyone on track and address any issues early on. Set a regular schedule for virtual meetings, and agree on a platform that works for all members (Zoom, Teams, Google Meet). Pro Tip: A good-quality USB microphone (https://amzn.to/4hpX2B0) or noise-cancelling headphones (https://amzn.to/4foRg0F) can make those long video calls much smoother. You can also organize your work by having a large dry erase calendar in your office (https://amzn.to/4e6GcEd) Manage Time Zones Wisely: Working with collaborators across different time zones? Use a world clock app to find suitable meeting times and avoid confusion. Apps like World Time Buddy can help you plan calls at times that work for everyone. Utilize Collaborative Tools: For managing tasks, drafts, and data, use tools that allow easy sharing and real-time collaboration. Platforms like Miro can also be helpful for brainstorming and mapping out ideas visually, even if you’re not all in the same room. Pro Tip: Check out these portable hard drives for secure data storage and sharing, especially when working with large datasets (https://amzn.to/4hpXdfE) Respect Cultural Differences: Collaborating with researchers from different cultural backgrounds can be enriching, but it’s essential to be mindful of differences in communication styles, work ethics, and holidays. Being open and respectful goes a long way in building trust and camaraderie. Celebrate Milestones Together: Don’t forget to celebrate the wins, big and small. Finished a draft? Submitted a paper? Take a moment to acknowledge it! Positive reinforcement keeps morale high and strengthens team spirit. Collaboration is a powerful tool that can lead to groundbreaking research and lifelong professional relationships. With a little planning and the right tools, your next research partnership could be your most successful yet! #ResearchCollaborations #AcademicLife #ResearchTips #TeamScience #ResearchBeast