What makes a great scientist? An intuitive answer probably is: "be an expert in a certain field." Yet, as modern biomedical science is such a fast-evolving field, is becoming "the expert" our ultimate goal?
In the business world, you will often hear people look for talents who are so-called "T-shaped." They have an uncanny ability to work outside their core area while maintaining the depth of expertise in a given field. Who doesn't want such talent in science? Counterintuitively, in science training, we are almost afraid of exploring different areas or learning something from neighboring labs. Many scientists, ironically, only work in their comfort zone throughout their careers. Unarguably, they are indeed experts in their field. One of the biggest fears is that doing science is such a massive undertaking—even one subject matter requires years of training to be somewhere close to being "an expert." We don't want to train our students to be a "Jack of all trades, master of none." Sounds reasonable, right?
From a pure "business execution" perspective, the narrowly focused niche scientist might be way ahead in the publication game (at the beginning of one's career), because they can focus limited resources on generating an immediate research product. However, I often feel that those who are truly ingenious and visionary in science are the ones who have broad interests in other fields. Aristotle's interests went far beyond logic. Leonardo da Vinci's scientific discoveries contributed to many natural science disciplines, in addition to his work as an artist. Interdisciplinary knowledge makes you a better scientist! In retrospect, the recent leading-edge trends in cancer biology are always inspired by other fields, which makes me feel that we, as cancer biologists, are often following in other people's footsteps :( ... cancer stem cell theory, cancer evolution, tumor mechanotransduction... just to name a few.
Interdisciplinary training is important for future visionary leaders in science. One key question for science educators is how to balance training in "depth" and training in "breadth." Novice science explorers easily get distracted and lost in the weeds of "other cool science." Being "focused" means continuously saying "NO" (at least for the moment). Yet, nothing is more important than keeping an open mind and embracing interdisciplinary science when opportunities present themselves. In the end, "learning new things" is the fundamental happiness that we all enjoy :)