Appendix II: Systems Biology internationally

The United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and the countries of the European Union have all implemented mechanisms to fund Systems Biology research with United States and Japan being viewed as most progressive due to the early recognition of the field and substantial early investments. In fact, initiatives launched in the United States and in Japan are viewed as the main thrust behind the emergence of Systems Biology as a formal discipline. Central milestones include the founding in the US of the Molecular Sciences Institute in 1996 and the Institute of Systems Biology in 2000, and the launch in Japan of the E-Cell Project in 1996 and the Kitano Symbiotic Systems Project in 1998.

In order to recognize the context in which Canadian Systems Biology has to operate and compete, the sections below provide brief summaries of some of the major System Biology and Systems Biology-related initiatives in the United States and selected European countries. It is noted that the review is not exhaustive and only highlights a few of the most representative initiatives. Additional information is provided by Science magazine and the World Technology Evaluation Centre.

The United States of America

The US government has made massive investments to establish, develop and sustain systems-oriented and integrative research, and the major universities have made substantial commitments. For example, Harvard University has established a Department of Systems Biology , its first new academic unit in 40 years, with is own Ph.D. program and an expected size of 20-25 faculty members. Other noticeable interdisciplinary centres include the NIH-funded Institute of Systems Biology in Seattle, the Computational and Systems Biology Initiative at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , the Bio-X program at Stanford University and the Center for Quantitative Biology at Princeton University . In addition, the Broad Institute, which is a research collaboration of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University and its affiliated hospitals and the Whitehead Institute, was founded to bridge the gap between genomics and medicine by hosting scientific programs in diverse areas such as Cancer, Medical and Population Genetics, Genome Biology and Cell Circuits, Chemical Biology, Metabolic Disease as well as Computational Biology and Bioinformatics. These and other initiatives are supported through programs launched by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defence, the Army Research Office, and the Department of Energy.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has a Roadmap for Medical Research that contains several Systems Biology-related strategic areas of development, including the US$300 million Molecular Libraries Initiative, which includes the NIH Chemical Genomics Center, a national network of molecular screening centres, and the development and expansion of computational and predictive modelling. The NIH is in this context supporting seven Roadmap National Centers for Biomedical Computing . The National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) has a dedicated Systems Biology Initiative that funds centres, research projects and education programs. The specific objective of the initiative is to attract investigators trained in the mathematically based disciplines to the study of biomedical problems. The NIGMS currently supports centres at Case Western Reserve University, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University and the University of Washington. Additionally, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute has currently an open Request for Applications to apply Systems Biology approaches to innovative, high-risk, high-impact research by multidisciplinary teams of investigators.

The National Science Foundation has an Integrative Organismal Biology program that supports research aimed at integrative understanding, through advanced computational techniques and interdisciplinary perspectives, from the molecular through the ecosystem levels.

The Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) under the Department of Defence (DOD) has supported Systems Biology research, including $5.3 million US for Stanford’s Bio-X program and two computational technology platforms, the Systems Biology Mark-up Language and the Bio-Spice software , for the simulation of complex biological systems.

The Army Research Office is funding Systems Biology-related biotechnology development through, for example, its five-year US$50 million award to the establishment of the Institute of Collaborative Biotechnology as a partnership between University of California, Santa Barbara, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the California Institute of Technology and six industrial partners that will develop the technologies created in the university laboratories.

The Department of Energy (DOE) launched a major Systems Biology initiative, the Genomics: GTL (Genomes to Life) program, in 2002 . The initial phase of the 25-year program seeks to facilitate and accelerate the transition from genomics to Systems Biology with an emphasis on microbiology. It sponsors seven major research initiatives, three Institutes for the Advancement of Computational Biology Research & Education as well as principal investigator-based projects. The DOE budget for 2007 includes roughly $160 million for the Genomics: GTL program . It is interesting to note this is significantly higher than that requested for the Human Genome project, highlighting the seriousness of the commitment to develop Systems Biology.

Europe

A recent European Science Foundation Policy Briefing outlined several national and trans-national Systems Biology funding programs recently launched in European Union member states. Most European countries have long traditions of Systems Biology-related research and have numerous local clusters of expertise that are gradually evolving into Systems Biology groups and centres. The sections below provide a brief description of some of the national Systems Biology initiatives in Germany, Switzerland and the United Kingdom as well as pan-European projects supported by the European Commission. Additional noteworthy initiatives include the $3.7 million Systems Biology initiative at the Hamilton Institute in Ireland , and the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche new funding program “Biologie Systémique (BIOSYS)”, which had its first call for applications in February 2006.

Germany is among the leading European Systems Biology nations and has made substantial investments and commitments. For example, the Federal German Government has a “Systems to Life – Systems Biology” funding priority program , and has committed $152 million to a Systems Biology project studying the liver.

Switzerland supports Systems Biology through initiatives such as the SystemsX program founded by ETH Zurich, University of Basel and University of Zurich. The initiative, which is funded by pharmaceutical giant F. Hoffmann-La Roche (Roche), receives support amounting to $8.7 million from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in 2006 and 2007. An additional $17.4 million is provided by the local government to construct a new Center of Biosystems and Engineering in Basel . Additionally, the Department of Biology at the ETH Zurich founded the Institute of Molecular Systems Biology in 2005.

The United Kingdom provides direct support for Centres for Integrative and Systems Biology through the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. These centres are intended to possess the vision, breadth of intellectual leadership and research resources to integrate traditionally separate disciplines, such as biology, chemistry, computer science, engineering, mathematics and physics, into quantitative and predictive Systems Biology programs. Each centre may request up to $14 million with an additional $3 million dedicated to the building of multidisciplinary teams through the engagement of physical scientists and mathematicians.

The European Commission is providing strong support for Integrative and Systems Biology that augments the national initiatives. Examples of Systems Biology-oriented transnational funding and research programs supported by the European Commission are EUSYSBIO, focusing on the training of young scientists and international networking; ERASysBio, a long-term initiative to coordinate research activities and to create a European Research Area for Systems Biology ; the Yeast Systems Biology Network, which uses yeast as a model system to study the rules governing the dynamic operation of cellular systems ; BIOSIM, a Network of Excellence for the development and use of simulation techniques ; QUASI, a program employing multidisciplinary approaches to decipher basic mechanisms underlying signal transduction, intracellular communication and transcriptional activation ; COMBIO, aiming at bringing computational biology to the bench through an integrative approach to cellular signalling and control processes ; EMI-CD, a modelling initiative for the development of software platforms for combating complex diseases ; and the COSBICS program aiming to establish and apply a novel computational framework in which to investigate dynamic interactions of molecules within cells.