The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) is a comprehensive effort to create a data repository for the discoveries and findings of more than 150 of the nation’s top researchers who are working in concert on specific cancer types. These scientists, who are based out of more than two dozen renowned institutions, are systematically mapping genomic changes to create a cancer atlas accessible to all who are searching for better methods to prevent, diagnose and treat cancer.

 

Joe Vockley, PhD, director of the TCGA program office in the Office of the Director of the National Cancer Institute, said the official October 2009 launch of the ambitious project followed a successful pilot program. “We performed a three-year pilot study to determine if this was a valid model for the generation and analysis of the types of data to lead to discoveries. It was really an experiment itself in large-scale collaboration.”

 

Co-funded and co-managed by NCI and the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), TCGA is based on the premise that the best way to stop the growth and spread of cancer cells within patients is to attack cancer through its genetic vulnerabilities. The battle began with a focus on three cancers — glioblastoma, ovarian and lung, which account for more than 250,000 cancer cases each year in the United States. Vockley noted the majority of attention during the pilot program was centered on the brain and gynecologic cancers with results demonstrating that taking a sequential, coordinated, systemic approach is a highly effective means of using combined resources to gain traction in the war on cancer.

 

“We’re validating discoveries made by other investigators, as well as making our own new discoveries of genes and biological processes involved in cancer types,” he noted.

 

He added the investigators are focusing on up to 500 samples nationwide of both cancerous and matched normal tissue per tumor type to put together a large enough dataset so that researchers worldwide have confidence in the findings. Vockley said one of the problems in the past has been a lack of analysis and re-analysis of findings to provide reassurance that a research team’s discoveries aren’t simply an anomaly.

 

“One of the things TCGA is about is adding a level of statistically significant data so the scientific and medical communities have confidence in our discoveries.” To do that, TCGA investigators are using the most sophisticated tools available. “We’re taking the cancers and analyzing them over all the various types of genomic platforms that exist today,” Vockley continued. Another goal, he said, is to ensure the data generated is made quickly available to the broader research community … so that discoveries enter the public domain “almost in real time.”

 

The hope of the ambitious project, he said is multifaceted. “Number one, we would like to generate new therapies — diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic targets,” Vockley said of efforts to create individualized treatment options based on the genomic and genetic aspects of various tumors. “We’re trying to accelerate this process in 20 different tumor types.”

 

Second, the large-scale project creates discovery building blocks to be further developed by other researchers while removing the often-prohibitive cost of using genomic technologies. “It really brings the genomic discovery past that barrier to entry to the point where people can access the data and use the data without the huge dollar costs to generate that data,” said Vockley.

 

Vockley added another key factor in the project is making the database relevant to clinicians and other researchers. “It’s one thing to build a database … another to make it useful to your customer,” he pointed out. With that in mind, TCGA has made the commitment not to simply generate data and walk away. Instead, he said, a full 50 percent of the project’s appropriated funds have been devoted to the bioinformatics effort. “That is what is going to enable us to move this into the clinic quicker,” he stated.

 

Since the official launch last fall, Vockley said the researchers’ attention has expanded to adenocarcinoma of the lung, adenocarcinoma of the colon and acute myelogenous leukemia. TCGA hopes to map the genomes of at least 20 cancers over the next five years.

 

For More Information, visit http://cancergenome.nih.gov