Duke School of Medicine Dean Nancy Andrews joined Venkatesh Narayanamurti of  Harvard University and Keith Yamamoto of the University of California, San Francisco, Wednesday to introduce a new report calling on the United States to maintain its leadership in science and technology through reorganizing the scientific enterprise to focus on grand societal challenges.

"ARISE II: Unleashing Americas Research & innovation Enterprise," a report from a committee of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, highlights the need for greater coordination between government, university and industry research.  It advocates for greater integration of theories, concepts, and applications from multiple scientific disciplines -- biology, physics, medicine, engineering, and computer science -- to solve the complex problems of the 21st century.  The committee was co-chaired by Narayanamurti and Yamamoto.

"One of our objectives is to break down barriers that still exist, to promote real sharing of tools and expertise, and to incentivize integrative approaches across traditional disciplines," Andrews, a committee member and co-author of the study, said at the release of the report on Wednesday at the National Press Club.

"Scientific and technological innovation has been vital to the economic prosperity and security of the United States," said Leslie Berlowitz, president of the American Academy, "yet there is growing concern that the nation risks losing its position of global technological leadership."

"What is both possible and necessary is a true conceptual leap from interdisciplinary collaboration to a powerful transdisciplinarity, sweeping together the physical sciences and engineering and the life sciences and medicine," the report reads.