ARC Discovery grant success for Prof Rachel Ankeny

Prof Rachel Ankeny was successful in the most recent ARC Discovery Project grant round for her project “Organisms and Us: How Living Things Help Us To Understand Our World” with Prof Michael Dietrich from Arizona State University and A/Prof Sabina Leonelli from the University of Exeter.

The project aims to understand how researchers learn from and 'think with' non-human organisms and will explore how advances in the content and technologies in the biological and biomedical sciences have resulted in new understandings of what we can know and learn from organisms, particularly with regard to human functioning, health, and well-being.

Although the project is grounded in studies of the history and philosophy of science, this project is related to work within the Food Values Research Group, as many model organisms have been used in the development of food crops, and food-producing animals are often used as model organisms as well.

The findings of this project will be useful to scientists who aim to produce biotechnologies or develop theories, to clinicians seeking deeper understandings of health and disease, and to science policymakers considering appropriate use of animals for research, including scientific, ethical, and economic considerations.

Arabidopsis, a popular model organism (image via Wikimedia Commons)