Computational Systems Biology of Cancer group exists in the Bioinformatics Unit of Institut Curie since the end of 2004. Now it consists of several permanent researchers, postdocs and PhD students. Since year 2007 the team is an "equipe labellisee par La Ligue Nationale Contre le Cancer". The team is also an antenna of the Institut des Systemes Complexes Paris Ile-de-France, whose Institut Curie is a partner.

The long-term global objective of the group could be formulated as following:

Using Systems Biology approach, understand the design principles of the biological networks involved in cancer, contribute to the development of new strategies for human cancer treatment, propose new target molecules and cancer drugs.

By Systems Biology approach we mean using available or deducible information on molecular structures and interactions taking place in a living cell (at different levels like genome, transcriptome, proteome, regulation networks, epigenetics) and integrating heterogeneous sources of data for creating mechanistical or statistical models of human cancer.

The models constructed are then used to make predictions on tumor evolution and on the perturbations to apply to the system to have it adopt the desired behavior. Our approach is therefore strongly connected to the concepts of robustness, complexity and flexibility in biological networks.

The strategic choice of the principal objective dictates also the tactic choices which have been made by the participants of the Systems Biology project at Institut Curie in their research lines, like

• Go from a concrete biological problem (a dataset or an observed phenomenon which has to be explained) to methods for its solution. In other words, not to look for a dataset which works particularly well for a method invented but try to modify the method or find a better one for solving a concrete problem
• Invest sufficient time into studying "biological" details of the problem under study and trying to find a common language with biologists of Institut Curie
• Think about possible clinical applications of any finding, even in a (reasonable) perspective
• Think of the connection of a personal project with one or several hallmarks of cancer (Self-sufficiency in growth signals, Insensitivity to anti-growth signals, Limitless replicating potential, Evading apoptosis, Sustained angiogenesis and Tissue invasion and metastasis); it makes it important to constantly collect information and modeling approaches on (in the order of priority for our group) a) functioning of the human cell cycle; b) apoptosis pathway; c) cell invasion; d) angiogenesis.

The projects of the group are supported by the funding agencies listed below that we acknowledge: