Canadian strengths and challenges

Canada is in a uniquely favourable position to be a major international player in Systems Biology due to investments in building cutting-edge research capacity by the Federal Government (i.e., Genome Canada, the Canada Research Chairs program and the Canadian Foundation for Innovation), as well as the Provincial Governments and most medical, academic and governmental research institutions. Because of these investments, Canada excels in some of the key experimental technologies fuelling Systems Biology. Canada also has significant capacity in relevant areas of computer science and engineering and has recently significantly bolstered its capacity in bioinformatics, computational, theoretical and mathematical biology by aggressive hiring of international experts in these fields. Nevertheless, despite availability of core technological and intellectual capacity, Systems Biology is underdeveloped in Canada.

There are several factors that impede the development of Systems Biology in Canada. Three specific challenges should be addressed for Systems Biology research in Canada to achieve its full potential and to ensure optimal use of capacity generated by past investments:

• Systems Biology projects often require a combination of funding-intensive high-throughput experimentation across multiple technology platforms and substantial expertise in data management, integration and analysis. Such projects are difficult to establish and maintain in the current funding environment. Specifically, the operational funding dedicated to interdisciplinary and integrative biological research is limited and existing grant panels are not designed to evaluate Systems Biology applications. Moreover, Genome Canada, which presently funds several Systems Biology and Systems Biology-related projects, only supports large-scale projects and is funded by a mechanism that is not clearly sustainable.
• Communication across the boundaries of scientific disciplines represents a serious obstacle to the future success of Systems Biology in Canada. Particularly, mathematical, statistical and computational modelling and analysis is vitally important for Systems Biology. The absence of quantitative methodologies in biological and biomedical training curricula makes it a challenge to establish interdisciplinary interactions and collaborations, particularly across the interfaces between science and medicine and between experiments and theory.
• The training of highly qualified Systems Biology personnel is virtually non-existent. As discussed in a recent Special Feature in Science magazine devoted to careers in Systems Biology , traditional training programs are not ideal for the education and training of highly qualified personnel with expertise in Systems Biology. This is also true in Canada. The existing research environments are not able to train a sufficient number of highly qualified personnel with the broad skill base required to meet the present and anticipated future demand within Canada and for Canada to compete internationally in Systems Biology research.