Spotlight on Cancer Informatics

A I think that understanding and effectively modeling the dynamics of cancer and affected normal tissues at all biocomplexity levels by using any effi cient combination of mathematical and computer modeling approaches (discrete, continuous, deterministic, stochastic, analytical, numerical, algorithmic etc.) is the fundamental open question and research challenge in cancer informatics. Obviously this is a long term target which presupposes success in understanding and modeling every single critical mechanism involved in cancer and affected normal tissue development and treatment response, as well as the subsequent integration of all those modeling modules. As the demands of such an endeavor are tremendous, I think that a parallelism with the history of Newtonian physics might serve as a source of guidance, inspiration and courage. It has been suggested that cancer epitomizes the entire biology. In this context I think that a title like: “Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica: Pars II, Materia Vivens” (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy: Part II, Living Matter) might to some extent describe the collaborative efforts on a worldwide scale to apply the analytical way of thinking on the description of natural phenomena (mechanisms) involving living matter and especially on those related to cancer. Obviously stochasticity would be a key player in such an approach. A thorough, quantitative, clinically validated and exploitable understanding of such multi-scale phenomena is expected to dramatically accelerate the achievement of cancer cure on a patient individualized basis through treatment optimization in silico (on the computer). Such an expectation seems to be compatible with the US National Cancer Program’s goal of eliminating the suffering and death due to cancer by 2015.