The Network Medicine Alliance
The new discipline of Network Medicine stems from our growing realization that conventional scientific reductionism is inadequate for dissecting complex diseases, increasing efficacy of prevention strategies, or tailoring precise therapies. In our view, health and disease must be viewed in the context of the interplay among multiple molecular and environmental determinants.
KI NMA collaborative grants 2022
The KI Network Medicine Global Alliance (KI NMA) steering group is pleased to announce the availability of limited competitive funds for grant applications by faculty, staff and/or students to conduct collaborative interactions within the Network Medicine Institute and Global Alliance.
The call will open in June.
Open Access webinar: Network Medicine and Drug Repurposing in Cardiovascular Disease
The aim is to give an overview of how network analysis can be used to understand complex phenotypes and molecular endophenotypes and how this approach can be used to repurpose already approved drugs for the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease.
The objective is to summarize the current use of network analysis in cardiovascular disease.
Rethinking Cancer - New book out
Leading scientists argue for a new paradigm for cancer research, proposing a complex systems view of cancer supported by empirical evidence.
Current consensus in cancer research explains cancer as a disease caused by specific mutations in certain genes. Thanks to dramatic advances in genome sequencing, never before have we known so much about the individual cancer cell—and yet it is still unclear how to use this knowledge for treatment success. In this volume, leading researchers argue for a new theory framework for understanding and treating cancer. The contributors propose a complex systems view of cancer, presenting conceptual building blocks for a new research paradigm supported by empirical evidence.
Edited by: Bernhard Strauss (University of Cambridge), Marta Bertolaso (Università Campus Bio-Medico in Rome), Ingemar Ernberg (Karolinska Institutet) and Mina J. Bissell (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory).
Aim
The Network Medicine Institute and Global Alliance (previously the International Network Medicine Consortium) aims to balance hypothesis-driven and data (methodology)-driven approaches to healthcare applications, by using innovative technology, information, and big data to create an integrated set of principles and discoveries that can fully capture the interplay inherent in this complex system. The principles and discoveries aim to influence prevention, diagnosis, and treatment beneficially.
The Network Medicine Alliance (NMA) may identify new diagnostic tools, preventive strategies, and therapeutic targets, and repurpose or reposition approved drugs. NMA will not only identify targets and healthcare measures for high-risk patients, but may also address the needs of low-risk patients and the needs of patients affected by diseases in both the developed and developing world. The NMA, in these regards, would be able to guide policy makers and funding agencies globally, both public and private, to provide the highest quality, rationalized, sustainable healthcare system.
Strategy
The NMA will act as a key driver to educate policymakers in developing white paper publications in peer reviewed journals including articulating the consortium’s vision, philosophy, and strategy to implement its goals internationally
Members of the NMA
- Brigham and Women's Hospital | Harvard Medical School
- Emory University
- Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Italy
- Istituto BioGem, Italy
- Karolinska Institutet, Sweden
- Northeastern University, Boston, MA USA
- Sapienza Universita´ di Roma, Italy
- Semmelweis Egyetem, Hungary
- Technische Universitat München, Germany
- Universita` degli Studi della Campania, “Luigi Vanvitelli”, Italy
- Universita` degli Studi di Milano, Italy
- Universita` degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Italy
- Universita´ di Bologna, Italy
- Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain
- Universite´ Catholique de Louvain, Belgium
- Universite´ de Genève, Switzerland
- Universiteit Maastricht, Netherlands
- Yale University
- University of Pittsburgh
- Cleveland Clinic-Lerner Institute
- Stanford University
- Georgetown University
- University of California Los Angeles
- University of California San Diego
- University of California San Francisco
- Mount Sinai Hospital System
At Karolinska Institutet
KI Steering Group
NMA at Karolinska Institutet is powered by a steering group with researchers from different fields of science who are both researcher within the field of network analysis or user of it’s outcomes.
The KI NMA Steering group consist of
- Paolo Parini, LabMed, MedH – academic coordinator
- Ingemar Ernberg, MTC
- Nanna Fyhrquist, IMM
- Volker Lauschke, FyFa
- Janne Lehtiö, OnkPat
- Matthias Löhr, CLINTEC
- Peter Stenvinkel, CLINTEC
- vacant, student representative
- Mia Bjerke, UF – international coordinator
- Benedek Marcell Bozoky, MTC (alternate for Ingemar Ernberg)
Aim and values
The aim of the KI NMA Steering group is to promote and sustain initiative and research in the field of network medicine. Mainly by organizing symposia and exchange of researchers, teachers and students within NMA.
The KI NMA steering group will work according to the following values
- Forward thinking : to be truly innovative
- Societal focus: to aim to benefit society at large
- Interdisciplinary: to foster synergies between different areas of expertise
- Respect: to create equal opportunities for all
- Quality: to drive solid of research and education
- Transparency: to be compliant to ethical principles and good practice
Long term goals
The establishment of a KI-K-SciLife local virtual center for network medicine
- Build a strong interaction between national and NMA partners excellent in theory and methods development and the medical community (at KI-K) to catalyze competence building in network medicine
- Generate resources for interdisciplinary research projects in this area, for post doc exchange and recruitment and ultimately for higher research positions in NM at KI
Publications:
Rethinking cancer : a new paradigm for the post-genomics era / edited by Bernhard Strauss, Marta Bertolaso, Ingemar Ernberg, and Mina J. Bissell. Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press, (2021). ISBN 9780262045216
Maron, B.A., Altucci, L., Balligand, J. et al. A global network for network medicine. npj Syst Biol Appl 6, 29 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41540-020-00143-9
Parini P, Altucci L, Balligand JL, Baumbach J, Ferdinandy P, Filetti S, Maron BA, Petrillo E, Silverman EK, Barabasi AL, Loscalzo J; International Network Medicine Consortium. The Network Medicine Imperative and the Need for an International Network Medicine Consortium. Am J Med. 2020 Sep;133(9):e451-e454. doi: 10.1016/j.amjmed.2020.03.034. Epub 2020 Apr 19. PMID: 32320696.