What is a disease map?

A systems medicine disease map is a high-quality expert community-driven representation of disease mechanisms, a conceptual model of a disease. The detailed layer consists of interconnected signalling, metabolic and gene regulatory pathways stored in standard formats such as SBGN, SBML and BioPAX. The involvement of domain experts (clinicians and biologists) ensures that all the disease hallmarks are covered and relevant knowledge is adequately represented.

What are the disease maps for?

In translational medicine projects disease maps are used for advanced ‘omics data interpretation and hypothesis generation, as the basis for mathematical models, for predictive analysis and for building clinical decision support systems. The maps can be used for educational purposes as teaching aids.

The community

The Disease Maps Project is designed as a large-scale community effort. It is a network of groups that work together in order to better understand disease mechanisms. We exchange best practices, share information, develop tools to make it easier for all the involved groups to achieve their goals.