Transdisciplinary collaboration is transforming how we understand and combat cancer's complexity
In the global fight against cancer, a quiet revolution is reshaping how scientists work together. Gone are the days of the lone researcher toiling in isolation—today's most pressing cancer challenges demand something different. As cancer's complexity becomes increasingly apparent, with its tangled web of genetic, behavioral, environmental, and societal factors, a powerful new approach is emerging: transdisciplinary team science.
This isn't merely collaboration with a new name; it represents a fundamental rethinking of how scientific knowledge is produced and applied.
Cancer types requiring diverse expertise
NCI investment in TREC I initiative
Increase in cross-disciplinary publications
The National Cancer Institute has been at the forefront of this movement, investing in ambitious initiatives that bring together researchers from disparate fields to tackle cancer from all angles. From understanding the intricate relationships between obesity, nutrition, and cancer to advancing cutting-edge immunotherapies, these teams are breaking down traditional academic silos and forging new integrative approaches 1 4 .
To understand what makes transdisciplinary team science special, it helps to visualize research approaches along a continuum. At one end sits unidisciplinary research, where a single researcher or team from one field works within their established boundaries. Further along lies multidisciplinary work, where researchers from different disciplines work in parallel, each contributing their piece without significantly changing their approach. Interdisciplinary research goes a step further, with teams integrating methods and concepts from different fields, though often maintaining distinct disciplinary boundaries 4 .
Single researcher or team within one field
Parallel contributions without integration
Blending approaches while maintaining boundaries
Creating novel approaches beyond disciplines
Transdisciplinary research represents the most integrative end of this spectrum. It involves scholars and practitioners from both academic disciplines and non-academic fields working jointly to develop and use novel conceptual and methodological approaches that synthesize and extend discipline-specific perspectives, theories, methods, and translational strategies 4 . The goal isn't just to combine existing knowledge, but to create genuinely new approaches that yield innovative solutions to particular scientific and societal problems 4 .
Cancer epitomizes the type of complex problem that benefits from transdisciplinary approaches. Consider the relationship between obesity and cancer—a connection that involves molecular pathways, individual behaviors, social environments, economic factors, and public policy. No single discipline can fully capture this complexity.
Studying inflammatory pathways, genetic factors, and molecular mechanisms linking obesity to cancer risk.
Tracking population patterns, risk factors, and incidence rates across diverse demographic groups.
Examining psychological determinants, health behaviors, and intervention strategies for lifestyle change.
Evaluating intervention strategies, policy implications, and healthcare system integration.
The NCI has supported this approach through initiatives like the Transdisciplinary Research on Energetics and Cancer (TREC), which specifically fosters the integration of social, behavioral, and biological sciences to examine relationships among obesity, nutrition, physical activity and cancer 4 . This recognition that cancer cannot be fully understood or effectively addressed through narrow disciplinary lenses alone represents a significant evolution in how we approach cancer research.
To understand how transdisciplinary team science works in practice, let's examine the TREC initiative as a revealing case study. From 2005-2010, NCI invested $54 million in TREC I, funding four research centers and an independent coordination center 4 . Each center was required to implement three or more primary research subprojects addressing multiple "levels" of science (e.g., mouse models, clinical trials, epidemiology), establish shared administrative and statistical infrastructure, fund developmental pilot projects for highly innovative transdisciplinary research, and collaborate with other TREC centers through cross-center working groups 4 .
2005-2010 • $54 Million Investment
Four research centers and coordination center established with specific requirements for transdisciplinary integration.
Final Year of TREC I
In-depth interviews with 31 investigators and trainees to document experiences with transdisciplinary team science.
Post-TREC I
Identification of challenges, success factors, and impacts of transdisciplinary approaches in cancer research.
In the final year of TREC I, researchers conducted in-depth qualitative interviews with 31 participating investigators and trainees to document their experiences with transdisciplinary team science 1 4 . The semi-structured interview guides were tailored to different roles within TREC—center directors, principal investigators, trainees, and coordination center staff—to capture diverse perspectives on challenges, facilitating factors, and impacts 4 . This methodological approach allowed researchers to gather rich, nuanced data about what makes transdisciplinary team science succeed or struggle.
The TREC interviews revealed several compelling examples of successful transdisciplinary integration. One study identified a statistically significant association between short duration and poor quality of sleep with colorectal polyps, which have potential to become cancerous 4 . This finding emerged from integrating expertise across disciplines that traditionally work separately—sleep medicine, gastroenterology, and cancer epidemiology.
Source: National Cancer Institute Budget Fact Book
Another TREC-supported study found that participation in a 12-month exercise intervention led to increases in aerobic exercise and fitness that subsequently decreased oxidative stress (closely linked to inflammation and cancer), even with minimal changes in body mass and composition 4 . This project involved collaboration across two different TREC research centers, demonstrating the potential for cross-institutional team science to generate innovative findings.
The TREC interviews identified several significant hurdles that transdisciplinary teams must overcome:
Distinct values, norms, and work styles across fields can lead to misunderstandings about publication practices, data interpretation, and research priorities 4 .
The TREC participants also identified several factors that helped their teams overcome these challenges:
"Individuals who could act as 'translators' or bridges between disciplines played particularly valuable roles in facilitating integration." 1
Based on the lessons from TREC and other initiatives, researchers engaging in team science need more than just scientific expertise—they need what might be called "collaboration competency." The NCI's Science of Team Science (SciTS) team has worked to develop evaluation tools and resources that can support effective collaboration 9 .
More recently, organizations like Break Through Cancer have identified what they term the "Hallmarks of Cancer Collaboration"—six pillars that propel research teams to achieve new levels of productivity and impact 8 :
A bold, clear, and urgent vision for a goal that would be impossible to achieve by one laboratory or institution 8 .
Effective leaders who empower teams and create environments where radical collaboration can flourish 8 .
Restructured reward systems that recognize and value collaborative contributions 8 .
Establishment of psychological safety, trust, and mutual respect among team members 8 .
Willingness to share data, tools, and discoveries in real time through mechanisms like virtual shared laboratories 8 .
Dedicated support for project management, coordination, and administration 8 .
This emerging "playbook" for cancer team science represents a significant advance in how we structure and support collaborative research.
The investments in team science have yielded significant returns. Participants in TREC I reported multiple positive impacts, including new positive attitudes about transdisciplinary research, new boundary-crossing collaborations, scientific advances related to research approaches and findings, institutional culture change, and career advancement 1 4 .
These benefits extended beyond individual researchers to influence their home institutions, which often created new resources and support structures for transdisciplinary collaboration 4 .
Research comparing center-based team science initiatives to traditional investigator-initiated grants has found that team science can increase research productivity and produce more rapid and broader dissemination of research findings across multiple disciplines 4 . One study comparing the Transdisciplinary Tobacco Use Research Centers (TTURCs) to traditional R01 grants found that center-based approaches generated publications that reached more diverse scientific audiences 9 .
The future of cancer team science appears increasingly collaborative. Current initiatives like the Cancer Moonshot, Cancer Grand Challenges (partnering CRUK with NCI), the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, and Break Through Cancer are investing an estimated $500 million to $1 billion annually in team-based approaches to solving cancer challenges 8 .
Single-investigator focused projects with limited cross-disciplinary integration
Multi-project initiatives with related themes but often maintained disciplinary boundaries
Deliberate transdisciplinary integration with dedicated infrastructure and coordination
"Radical collaboration" with deep structural integration and real-time data sharing 8
These efforts build on earlier NCI-led programs like the Specialized Programs of Research Excellence (SPORE) and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), which demonstrated the power of coordinated, large-scale collaboration 5 8 .
These modern collaborations increasingly adopt what some term "radical collaboration"—characterized by deep structural integration, shared resources, and real-time data sharing 8 . This approach represents an evolution beyond traditional team science, with fully integrated teams working across institutional boundaries toward common goals.
The pioneering efforts of NCI grantees in transdisciplinary team science have provided invaluable lessons about how to collaborate effectively across disciplinary boundaries. The challenges are real—conceptual integration is difficult, disciplinary cultures clash, project management is complex, and traditional reward systems often fail to recognize collaborative work. Yet the potential benefits are too significant to ignore: more innovative research, broader dissemination of findings, and more rapid translation of discoveries into applications that benefit patients.
"To maximize our ability to bring impactful treatments to patients as rapidly as possible, the community must leverage new structural approaches that reform how teams of cancer researchers coalesce, function, and thrive in the modern era." 8
As these collaborative approaches continue to evolve and mature, they offer hope that by working together in new ways, we can tackle cancer's complexity more effectively. The future of cancer research may depend not only on what we study, but on how we work together to study it. The lessons from NCI's pioneering grantees have provided a foundation for this transformed future of cancer research.
Transdisciplinary team science represents a paradigm shift in how we approach complex problems like cancer, moving beyond traditional boundaries to create innovative solutions through integrated collaboration.