Introduction
It is well known that biomedical research will more and more depend on the analysis of all available information. Genomics and proteomics depend nowadays on high-throughput technologies and already heavily rely on automatic data analysis. New research areas are also emerging, like Clinical Bioinformatics, a discipline that tries to connect molecular and clinical information with the aim of orienting diagnosis and treatments towards personalized medicine. Clearly, oncology research and clinics also strictly depend on data analysis and integration and on bioinformatics tools and expertise. As a consequence, bioinformatics will become one of the most important research instrument for improving and making biological data analysis efficient. Italian Cancer Comprehensive Centers (CCCs, Istituti di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico Oncologici, IRCCS) did not develop up to now a clear strategy in this field. Resources, expertise and skills on Bioinformatics are still lacking, but for some good exceptions. Instead, many International institutes for research on cancer already developed adequate infrastructures. This is the case, e.g., of the DKFZ, Heidelberg and of the CNIO, Madrid, not to mention the Center for Bioinformatics of NCI, Bethesda. Italian CCCs must therefore raise their bioinformatics skills and expertise up to a level that is adequate to biomedical research of next years. The alliance of Italian CCCs “Alleanza contro il Cancro” (ACC) includes about 10 Institutes none of which has the sufficient critical mass that all centers together can, instead, easily reach, For this reason, a coordination and cooperation network is the best option for achieving a thorough dialogue between bioinformaticians, biologists and medical doctors, an effective knowledge transfer between Institutes, the exploitation of tools and results of single Institutes and the capacity of facing next years issues. The Italian Network for Oncology Bioinformatics – RNBIO has therefore been funded for two years, during which it is planned that the basis for an effective coordination will be laid. In this poster, we present the objectives of the network, the methodology for their achievement, current activities and some initial results.

Objectives
The main objective of the Italian Network for Oncology Bioinformatics – RNBIO is the setting up of an effective coordination of bioinformatics activities lead by partner Institutes with the aim of integrating and improving current expertise. The concrete objectives of the network refer to service provision, staff training, inter-institutional collaboration and identification of new ideas and projects, both for basic and for translational research.
The following goals are pursued:
- promotion of innovative design and development methodologies and computer technologies,
- coordination of research and development activities on topics of interest,
- exploitation and promotion of tools developed by partners
- pursuing of collaborations with Oncology Research Center of excellence and research networks and infrastructures,
- pursuing of collaborations with Grid networks and High Performance Computing providers.

Methods
RNBIO will carry out many activities, including: - training courses on bioinformatics tools and ICT technologies - scientific seminars and workshops - working groups - collaborations with HPC infrastructures and Grid networks
Training will include courses on the use of purpose tools and on bioinformatics programming skills. This twofold approach aims at improving skills both at the users’ level and at the developers’ level. The web site will aim at supporting both the promotion of the network and the project’s activities (coordination, collaborative development). Working groups are meant to be an important component of the network. Their main role is to put together expertise and skills of researchers and clinicians with various backgrounds, including bioinformaticians, biologists and medical doctors. They will constitute a place for discussion, confrontation, and brainstorming between people interested to the same issues in a multidisciplinary frame. Their activity will also be carried out by using collaborative development tools.

Current status
RNBIO started in October 2007 and devoted the first months of the project to its internal organization and the reference web site, that is available at http://www.rnbio.it/. The definition of working groups topics and the design of first training and scientific events were also done in these first months.
The RNBIO web site was implemented by using Plone Open Source Content Management System and it also include a ZWiki implementation; all network partners have an account and can both provide their contributions to the site and modify existing ones. The web site currently includes a public and a private areas. The public area is devoted to the presentation of network members, documents produced by the network, information on training activities and software developed by members. Two ‘smart folders’ list announcements included in the site. A folder is devoted to collaborative development of texts by means of the Wiki approach. The private area includes folders for the collaborative development of documents related to the activity of the working groups.
Partners are defining aims and objectives of the following working groups:
- Automation of in-silico data analysis processes
- Statistical methods for the analysis of molecular profiles
- Comparative sequence analysis
- Oncogenomics
- Oncoproteomics
- Structural bioinformatics (linked to ESFRI INSTRUCT initiative)
The first planned course is an introduction to the R statistical language. The NETTAB 2008 workshop will include a session devoted to Oncology Bioinformatics where members will present their expertise and recent research to a wider scientific audience of bioinformaticians, biologists and computer scientists.