Community-driven roadmap for integrated disease maps

International audienceThe Disease Maps Project builds on a network of scientific and clinical groups that exchange best practices, share informa-tion and develop systems biomedicine tools. The project aims for an integrated, highly curated and user-friendly platformfor disease-related knowledge. The primary focus of disease maps is on interconnected signaling, metabolic and gene regu-latory network pathways represented in standard formats. The involvement of domain experts ensures that the key dis-ease hallmarks are covered and relevant, up-to-date knowledge is adequately represented. Expert-curated and computerreadable, disease maps may serve as a compendium of knowledge, allow for data-supported hypothesis generation orserve as a scaffold for the generation of predictive mathematical models. This article summarizes the 2nd Disease MapsCommunity meeting, highlighting its important topics and outcomes. We outline milestones on the roadmap for the fu-ture development of disease maps, including creating and maintaining standardized disease maps; sharing parts of mapsthat encode common human disease mechanisms; providing technical solutions for complexity management of maps;and Web tools for in-depth exploration of such maps. A dedicated discussion was focused on mathematical modelingapproaches, as one of the main goals of disease map development is the generation of mathematically interpretablerepresentations to predict disease comorbidity or drug response and to suggest drug repositioning, altogether supportingclinical decisions