Intervention, integration and translation in obesity research: Genetic, developmental and metaorganismal approaches

Prediction and control of biological systems are driving forces of the life sciences. While varying degrees of these capabilities have been generated in every branch of biology throughout its history, the contemporary post-genomic period has seen a remarkable surge of optimism about the possibility of achieving fine-grained control of complex interactions of biological systems. One of the many physiological systems that appears to call out for systems-based control-oriented inquiry is that of weight gain, loss and maintenance in animal bodies, particularly those of humans. Our foci in this paper are how two aspects of biological practice -- intervention and integration -- orient and configure fields of scientific inquiry and help us understand translational practice better. We suggest that these features are inseparable in ongoing research activity: to intervene successfully in complex systems requires a highly integrated, multi-level understanding that can be transferred to new contexts. Obesity research casts considerable light on this claim and illustrates the difficulties in doing so. It also offers new avenues of investigation for the philosophies of science and medicine.Obesity science tackles the problems and causes of excess weight from a number of directions. The most well known stream of research is concerned with biochemical feedback loops and their genetic bases as well as behavioural contributions. Another rapidly developing body of research focuses on developmental and epigenetic causes of obesity and sees pregnancy and early childhood as major periods of intervention. A third, even newer avenue of research is concerned with the role microbes in the gut play in obesogenesis, and what the interventions are that might alleviate such contributions. What marks all these bodies of research is their dynamic and system-wide conception of obesity, and the integrated conceptual and methodological apparatuses that are brought to bear on the phenomenon of excess