This interview is with Cancer Informatics editorial board member Dr Georgios S. Stamatakos. Cancer Informatics is an open access journal published by Libertas Academica.

Editor in Chief Dr James Willey has recently issued a call for papers.

What is the primary focus of your work and main areas of expertise?

The primary focus of my work is in silico oncology i.e. the development, clinical validation and translation of clinically driven multiscale cancer simulation models and integrated systems ("oncosimulators") aiming at supporting the optimization of cancer treatment in the patient individualized context.

The main areas of my expertise are: cancer multiscale modelling, bioinformatics, analysis and simulation of biological systems, bioelectromagnetics, biooptics, electromagnetic propagation and scattering.

What are the most exciting and cutting-edge developments in your area?

The development and testing (in progress) of multi-scale four dimensional models of tumour and treatment affected normal tissue dynamics

The development, clinical adaptation and validation (currently in progress) of clinically driven multiscale "oncosimulators"

The endorsement of the development of multi scale oncosimulators by a reputable industry (ContraCancrum project) with the aim of serving in the future as advanced components of treatment planning

Who are your main formal and informal collaborators and/or networks? Please describe your work with them.

My formal and informal collaborators and networks for the time being are primarily the ones involved in or created by the following international research projects:

"ACGT: Advancing Clinicogenomic Trials on Cancer: Open Grid Services for Improving Medical Knowledge Discovery”: a European Commission and Japan funded integrated research project (FP6-2005-IST-026996).Implementation period: from 1 Feb. 2006 till 1 August 2010. I am the leader of the action (work package) "Technologies and Tools for In Silico Oncology" [ Web site ]

"ContraCancrum: Clinically Oriented Translational Cancer Multilevel Modeling”: a European Commission funded research project -STREP (FP7-ICT-2007-2- 223979 ). Implementation period: 2008-2011. I am the Leader of the two actions (work packages): "Simulation at the cellular and higher levels of biocomplexity" and "Integration of the Simulation System" [ Web site ]

"Virtual Physiological Human (VPH)": a European Commission funded Network of Excellence (FP7-ICT-2007-2 NoE VPH). Implementation period: 2008-2012. I am participating in VPH through the European Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) Digital Patient Working Group

"Center for the Development of a Virtual Tumor (CViT)": an NIH-National Cancer Institute supported project through the Integrative Cancer Biology Program (CA113004). mplementation period: 2004-2010.G. I am a member of the CViT community and have been involved in most CViT research activities including i.a. the “Ask the Expert” blog, several CViT events (workshops, discussions etc.) etc.

A tight collaboration with Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital (Athinoula Martinos Center) has led to the co-organization of the 1st Transatlantic Workshop on Multiscale Cancer Modeling (jointly supported by EC and NIH-NCI) that took place in Brussels in 2008, the co-editing of a book on Multiscale Cancer Modeling and several other activities.

Further collaborations on a bilateral basis (e.g. with Imperial College London,UK, Universitaet Siegen, Siegen, Germany, State University of Arizona, US etc) have also taken place.

In summary my formal and informal collaborators are rather numerous, represent a wide range of scientific, technological and clinical disciplines and institutions, are clearly focused on the various facets of in silico oncology and are scattered (up to now) on three continents (Europe, US and Japan).

How did you come to be working in your research area?

My main motivation has been to contribute to the understanding of the 'natural phenomenon' of cancer within the clinical environment and subsequently to help fighting the disease by exploiting the great potential of well designed, clinically adapted and validated mathematical and computational models. I firmly believe that it is time that medicine should become a quantitative analytical science in the strict sense of the term. Such an expression as 'engineering of living human matter' might describe a facet of this approach. Obviously several coincidences have contributed to my final research orientation. One of them has been the realization of the potential of numerical analysis techniques (e.g. finite difference techniques, method of moments etc.) used to solve more technically oriented problems (e.g. bioelectromagnetics, bio-optics.) A combination of the philosophy and principles of such techniques with the simulation wealth of discrete mathematics, particularly applicable to computer science, has served as the mathematical 'yeast' for my modelling approaches. Extensive interaction with clinicians has further provided a strong momentum towards a pragmatic and clinically exploitable simulation approach.

What do you think about the development of open access publishing? Have you published in an open access journal? What motivated you to do so?

Easy and free access as well as fast handling of the administrative work are some of the important aspects of open access publishing. Better focus on specific hot research subjects is a further asset. I have published three papers in open access journals. All previous reasons motivated me to do so.

What articles and/or books have you published recently?

A partly updated list of my publications related to in silico oncology can be found here .

Two indicative publications of special clinical interest are the following:

• G.S.Stamatakos, D.D.Dionysiou, N.M.Graf, N.A.Sofra, C.Desmedt, A.Hoppe, N.Uzunoglu, M.Tsiknakis , The Oncosimulator: a multilevel, clinically oriented simulation system of tumor growth and organism response to therapeutic schemes. Towards the clinical evaluation of in silico oncology, Proc. of the 29th Annual International Conference of the IEEE EMBS Cite Internationale, August 23-26, SuB07.1: 6628-6631 , Lyon, France , 2007 [Pubmed]

• N. Graf, A. Hoppe , E. Georgiadi, R. Belleman, C. Desmedt, D. Dionysiou, M. Erdt , J. Jacques, E. Kolokotroni, A. Lunzer, M. Tsiknakis, G. Stamatakos, ‘In Silico’ Oncology for Clinical Decision Making in the Context of Nephroblastoma. [Die Bedeutung von in silico ‘ Onkologie zur klinischen Entscheidungsfindung am Beispiel des Nephroblastoms] Klin. Paediatr. 221: 141-149 2009 [Pubmed]

Further information about Dr Stamatakos:

• My research group's webpage

• 1st Transatlantic Workshop on Multiscale Cancer Modeling, Brussels 2008 (I was the EU scientific organizer. Tom Deisboeck was the US scientific organizer)

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