The NCI Center for Bioinformatics (NCICB): Building a Foundation For In Silico Biomedical Research

Cancer is a disease of immense complexity. To effectively treat and prevent the disease we must address its multiple dimensions. Cancer is a disease of molecules, manifest in cells. It generates and requires systemic changes in the individual. Factors acting at the population level almost assuredly alter susceptibility. The body’s fundamental processes are involved in the disease, processes as basic as how cells divide, how they escape mortality, how they are supplied with blood and how they are recognized as normal or foreign. The full complement of the diverse fields of modern biomedicine is engaged in the assault on this complexity. These disciplines are armed with the latest tools of technology, generating mountains of data. Each surpasses the next in their unprecedented and novel view of the fundamental nature of cancer. Each contributes a vital thread of insight. Information technology provides a promising loom on which the threads of insight can be woven. The challenge of weaving these disparate threads of insight is daunting. The volume and diversity of data that must be synthesized strains human comprehension. Each research discipline speaks its own scientific dialect, thwarting translation of scientific insight among research communities. Yet the integration and conversion of information to knowledge is essential to tackling the etiology, treatment, and prevention of cancer. The application of information technology to address problems in biomedicine is called bioinformatics. Bioinformatics facilitates the electronic representation, redistribution, and integration of biomedical data. It makes information accessible both within and between the allied fields of cancer research. It weaves the disparate threads of research information into a rich tapestry of biomedical knowledge. Bioinformatics is increasingly inseparable from the conduct of research within each discipline. It is at the core of an exciting new direction in biomedicine, in-silico biology. Within in-silico biology virtual experiments are conducted using the large collection of data available to modern biomedicine. The linear nature of science is transformed into a spiral with bioinformatics joining the loose ends and facilitating progressive cycles of hypothesis generation and knowledge creation. Bioinformatics provides solutions to many of these challenges. The large bodies of data that increasingly constitute biomedicine are amenable to computer storage and manipulation. Information science can be