Team Science and Infectious Disease Work: Exploring Challenges and Opportunities

Collaborative global health research has been growing rapidly for approximately three decades now. This type of collaborative research, in contrast with a sole researcher approach, predominant in the past, has called for the integration of investigators, clinicians, practitioners, and others from outside of academia, often from different nations, in search of answers to a multitude of complex health problems. Team science is a novel way to conduct scientific research on individual and public health problems. Most areas of scientific inquiry today are multi-dimensional, and so are the teams studying them. Cross-disciplinary teams search for global applications of scientific advances to alleviate or eradicate human illness and suffering. These applications require consideration of social, political, and economic contexts across geographical boundaries. Integration of various bodies of knowledge, methods, approaches, and participating institutions’ protocols demand a new set of practices and considerations to improve the integrity of researchers as they operate within teams and the quality of scientific production. This chapter includes an overview of relevant team science topics and the study of team science research. It presents evidence of practices and elements that contribute to the integration and success of research teams. Concurrently, it narrates the experience of one laboratory team in their quest to anticipate and eventually integrate team science elements into their daily scientific and social practice. The authors believe that embracing team science practices is equally time-consuming and worthwhile, as both scientific production, research impact, and team members’ professional quality of life are maintained and improved. In addition, team members experience personal satisfaction and joy in establishing and maintaining trusting relationships.