Over the past decade, modeling and simulation has drawn increasing interest. The modeling community now realizes that modeling specific biological systems requires not only adequate knowledge representation, but also methods to simulate and analyze dynamical and steady state properties. For successful model construction, it is crucial to put sufficient emphasis on biological knowledge and curation representation in addition to data generation. We are presenting here several European and Swiss-wide projects involving curation and modeling. Within these projects we have leveraged the vertical annotation of the Swiss-Prot and Vital-IT group that builds upon knowledge around protein function to establish cell-based network models that can be interrogated and assessed for their dynamical properties. The approach established is an iterative biocuration and modeling assessment which helps shape and orient annotation priorities, as well as identify knowledge gaps.