Cancer Research Orgs Release Big Data for Precision Medicine
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) is releasing more than 19,000 de-identified genomic records to further the international research community’s explorations into precision medicine.
The big data dump, which includes information on 59 major types of cancer, including breast, colorectal, and lung cancer, is a result of the AACR Project Genomics Evidence Neoplasia Information Exchange (GENIE) initiative, and includes both genomic and some clinical data on consenting patients.
“We are excited to make publicly available this very large set of clinical-grade, next-generation sequencing data obtained during routine patient care,” said Charles L. Sawyers, MD, FAACR, AACR Project GENIE Steering Committee chairperson, chairperson of the Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.
“These data were generated as part of routine patient care and without AACR Project GENIE they would likely never have been shared with the global cancer research community.”
Eight cancer research institutions, including five based in the United States, have contributed to the first phase of the GENIE project. Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston are among the collaborators.
Alongside institutions in Paris, the Netherlands, Toronto, Nashville, and Baltimore, these organizations aim to expand the research community’s knowledge of cancer and its potential treatments by continuing to make the exchange of high-grade clinical data a top priority.
