Project description
A systems biology approach for studying cancer biology
Understanding the complexity of biological systems and phenomena is challenging because they involve many components that interact with each other on multiple levels. Rather than focusing on individual genes, proteins, or pathways in isolation, systems biology takes a holistic approach, considering the system as a network of interconnected components. The EU-funded CanPathPro project aims to develop a systems biology platform for testing cancer signalling hypotheses. The platform will integrate data from a mouse experimental system, next-generation sequencing, and proteomics into a comprehensive systems biology model. The CanPathPro platform is expected to find applications in biotechnology, personalised medicine, and drug development.
Objective
Recent developments in omics technologies demand implementation of systems biology approaches to facilitate analysis and interpretation of the generated complex datasets.This is essential for biotechnological as well as preclinical and clinical applications. In comparison to previous approaches, most cancer relevant studies are confined to pattern recognition or at best modelling of single pathways, rather than the complex pathways and cross-talk determining cancer progression and drug response. Systematic tools that evaluate and validate personalised medicine approaches on a preclinical level are missing; an important prerequisite for translation into clinical practice. The overall objective of CanPathPro is to build and validate a new biotechnological application: a combined experimental and systems biology platform, which will be utilized in testing cancer signaling hypotheses in biomedical research and life sciences. Thus, the proposed project will focus on developing and refining bioinformatic and experimental tools for the evaluation of systems biology modelling predictions. Components comprise a highly controlled mouse experimental system, NGS, a quantitative proteomics based read-out of changes in pathway signalling and an integrative systems biology model for data integration. Testable hypotheses about biological systems will be generated and experimentally validated. The developed system tools will be made available to researchers, SMEs and industry for practical applications. Following this project, a commercial platform for interpretation and analysis of complex omics data and for deriving and testing new hypotheses will be set up by the participating companies and academic partners. CanPathPro will enhance the competitive potential of the SMEs involved expanding in the field of biotechnology, personalised medicine and drug development and also provide new opportunities for other SMEs working in the field of bioinformatics and biomedical applications.
Fields of science
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicinepharmacology and pharmacydrug discovery
- medical and health sciencesclinical medicineoncologylung cancer
- medical and health scienceshealth sciencespersonalized medicine
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesartificial intelligencepattern recognition
- natural sciencesmathematicsapplied mathematicsmathematical model
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinator
12489 Berlin
Germany
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.