Contact:

Daniel Gallahan, Ph.D.
Chief, Structural Biology and Molecular Applications Branch;
Division of Cancer Biology, NCI
Telephone: (301) 435-5226
E-mail: dg13w@nih.gov

Objective of Project

The goal of this initiative is to promote the analysis of cancer as a complex biological system, with an ultimate goal of developing reliably predictive in silico models of cancer initiation and progression and for development of cancer interventions. This initiative will encourage the emergence of integrative cancer biology as a distinct field.

Description of Project

The complexity of cancer together with increased information about the cancer cell and its environment raises both challenges and opportunities in modern cancer biology. A comprehensive understanding of these genome-scale datasets depends on our ability to apply computational or mathematical modeling to them. The development of models is necessary as a framework for data analysis and validation. In turn, new data will help to refine model development. Multi-component, interactive processes at the sub-cellular, cellular, tissue, and organ levels should be amenable to modeling and simulation in ways previously limited by the lack of adequate data. Because this field is largely undeveloped, there is an opportunity to facilitate its development.

Addressing this opportunity requires a concerted effort at integrating the various disciplines by a cohesive group of dedicated researchers working on a common problem in cancer biology in a collaborative systems biology program. In addition to cancer biologists, these groups will have to include scientists with diverse expertise, particularly from the computational disciplines of mathematics, engineering, physics, and computer science. The need for quantitative data will drive the development of new instrumentation and methods. The organization and representation of these data streams and their relation to preexisting knowledge will require bioinformatics advances and the development of computer-based cancer biology hypotheses; intra- and inter-cellular simulations will require mathematical expertise, as will the development of new theoretical frameworks. To facilitate the development of this integrative approach to cancer biology, the NCI plans on funding Programs in integrative cancer biology using the established P20 and P50 funding mechanism.