Edited with colleagues Jane McKie and Elise Cachat, the book “Biopolis: Tales of Urban Biology” presents a collection of fictional stories that resulted from the collaboration between prominent writers and University of Edinburgh researchers. In the book, Viccy Adams worked with Dr Sonja Prade, Jane Alexander with Dr Nadanai Laohakunakorn, Clare Duffy with Dr Leonardo Rios, Pippa Goldschmidt with Prof Karen Halliday, Gavin Inglis with Dr Linus Schumacher, Vicki Jarrett with Dr Abdelrahman Zaky, Alice Tarbuck with Dr Amanda Jarvis, Neil Williamson with Dr Louise Horsfall, Andrew J. Wilson with Dr Alessia Lepore and Kirsti Wishart with Dr Adam Mol & Dr Vivek Senthivel.
The stories present deeply human accounts of bio-based futures that illuminate the relevance of research in synthetic biology, biochemistry, bioengineering, computational biology, and biomedicine to our collective goals.
The idea of bringing writers and researchers together was a result of the project “Being Biological: Exploring the intersections between smart cities and biodesign”, with Phillip Gough, Leigh-Anne Hepburn and Martin Tomitsch from the University of Sydney. The book was the result of an Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI) research award funding.
