Editor’s Page
sbv IMPROVER: Species Translation Challenge Open to the Scientific Community for Submissions
by Manuel C. Peitsch T
he organizers of sbv IMPROVER (Industrial Methodology for PROcess VErification in Research) are currently accepting submis- sions for the Species Translation Challenge, an innovative crowd-sourcing initiative designed to help define the limits of in vitro rodent models as predictors of human biology. This second sbv IMPROVER Challenge presents another valu- able opportunity for scientists around the world to work with high-quality data sets, improve their research methods, compete for research funding, and gain recognition among the scien- tific community.
The sbv IMPROVER project is a collaborative ef- fort that includes scientists from IBM Research (Yorktown Heights, NY) and Philip Morris International (PMI) Research & Development (Neuchâtel, Switzerland). The project was initi- ated to develop a more transparent and robust process for assessing complex scientific data in systems biology (the study of biological or- ganisms, viewed holistically as integrated and interacting networks of genes, proteins, and biochemical reactions). This approach has impli- cations for a wide variety of industries including pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, nutrition, and environmental safety–essentially any area that requires a more meaningful scientific analysis of Big Data. For PMI, the verification of data de- rived from systems biology is planned to form part of the assessment of an innovative range of products, currently in development, which may have the potential to reduce the risk of smoking- related diseases.
Species translation is getting a lot of attention at the moment, with the FDA looking carefully at how it can be applied to advance medical de- velopment. Donna Mendrick, Ph.D., Director of
AMERICAN LABORATORY • 6 • JUNE/JULY 2013
the FDA’s Division of Systems Biology, presented at the sbv IMPROVER Symposium in Boston, MA, in October 2012, highlighting the need for new species-translational biomarkers to empower personalized medicine. The Species Translation Challenge asks participants to verify that trans- lational mapping can enable prediction of the biological effects of “stimulus-induced” genetic alterations in one species, given information about the same alterations in another species. It is divided into four subchallenges:
1. An intraspecies protein phosphorylation challenge that asks: Can rodent phosphorylation status be inferred from rodent gene expression data?
2. An interspecies protein phosphorylation challenge that asks: Can human phosphorylation status be inferred from rodent gene expression and phosphorylation data, as well as human gene expression data?
3. An interspecies pathway perturbation challenge that asks: Can rodent gene
expression data be used to infer responsive gene sets and pathways in humans?
4. A species-specific network inference that asks participants to consider whether a consensus network can be constructed from gene expression, phosphorylation, and cytokine data.
The first sbv IMPROVER Challenge asked participants to identify diagnostic signatures in four disease areas: chronic obstructive pul- monary disease (COPD), lung cancer, multiple sclerosis, and psoriasis. The Diagnostic Signature Challenge ran in 2012 and attracted the par- ticipation of 54 teams from America, Asia, and Europe. Once the Species Translation Challenge is complete, other challenges are planned to
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