Bioinformatics, biostatistics, epidemiology and computational systems biology of cancer - Institut Curie / Inserm Unit 900 / Ecoles des Mines

Unit Director: Emmanuel Barillot
Deputy Director: Jean-Philippe Vert

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Keywords: tumor, systems biology, bioinformatics, biostatistics, epidemiology, complex system, modeling

The Cancer and Genome Unit is installed on 4 sites: in Paris, in the Developmental Biology and Cancer building of the Institut Curie, in the premises of the rue Mouffetard and of the rue des Fossés-Saint-Jacques, and at Fontainebleau in the Ecole des Mines ParisTech. It has 33 researchers, engineers and technicians, 6 postdoctoral fellows and 13 students, divided into 4 research teams and 1 technological platform.

Our Unit is studying several aspects of the cancer process through observation of the underlying molecular and cellular mechanisms: initiation (etiology), development and tumor progression (gene and protein networks involved), and improvement in therapeutic strategies (diagnosis, prognosis, therapeutic targets). Our research projects are conducted in close collaboration with Institut Curie biologists and clinicians and make use of data integration, statistical analysis, and mathematic modeling. They take advantage of new high throughput biological technologies at both the molecular and cellular levels (spectrometry, DNA chips, high-throughput cellular phenotyping, deep sequencing) and use state-of-the-art methods of data integration, statistical analysis, high dimension statistical learning, the study of complexity, inference and modeling of networks, and virtual screening.

Our inclusion of different levels of observation of tumors (DNA, RNA, proteins, interaction networks...) to explain the overall properties of the systems studied, in particular the tumor phenotype, iteratively alternates modeling of networks, predictions and experimental tests till validation: this is systems biology.

Our bioinformatics platform underpins a twofold purpose: integration of data on molecular profiles and cellular imaging (databases, user interfaces and automated processing chains to guarantee the sustainability, traceability and availability of the information), and analysis of these data in collaboration with our biologist or clinician colleagues who use the platform.

In terms of public health and clinical management, our recent work has shed light on the etiology of the hereditary forms of breast cancer and on the molecular signatures of different tumors as, for example, breast carcinomas and uveal melanoma. More fundamentally we draw maps of the molecular interactions governing the biological processes involved in tumor progression, as cellular proliferation and apoptosis.
We have also developed the statistical and computer tools needed to extract biological signals out of DNA microarrays, and techniques that employ biological networks in the search for diagnostic or prognostic predictors of cancer. Some of these results are already applied in clinical practice.
Lastly, we make available to fellow scientists throughout the world bioinformatic tools for the molecular analysis of tumors (over one hundred research teams use our tools).

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