Introduction: Cancer Systems and Integrative Biology

The insights provided by the holistic approaches of systems and integrative biology offer a means to address the multiple levels of complexity evident in cancer biology. Often focused on the use of large-scale, high-dimensional omics data for discovery in silico, integration with lower-dimensional data and lower-throughput wet laboratory studies allows for the development of a more mechanistic understanding of the control, execution, and operation of complex biological systems. While no single volume can cover all of the advances across this broad and rapidly developing field, we here provide reviews, methods, and detailed protocols for several state-of-the-art approaches to probe cancer biology from an integrative systems perspective. The protocols presented are intended for easy implementation in the laboratory and often offer a clear rationale for their development and application. This introduction provides a very brief description of systems and integrative biology as context for the chapters that follow, with a short overview of each chapter to allow the reader to easily and quickly find those protocols of most interest.