生物谷报道：本月8日，美国国立卫生院下属的国立癌症研究所与国立人类基因组研究所宣布了癌症基因组图试验计划的另外两个完整内容。历时三年，耗资一亿美圆的该计划宗在验证用大规模的基因组分析技术去鉴别重要癌症的遗传改变的可行性。包括麻省理工学院，哈佛大学，剑桥大学在内的五个州的七个研究所被授予资金去建立癌症基因组鉴定中心。每个癌症基因组鉴定中心都应用最先进的基因组分析技术为癌症基因组图试验计划选中的癌症鉴定基因组上的最重要的改变。国立卫生院每年将拨款一千一百七十万美圆去资助癌症基因组鉴定中心。
发起于2005十二月年的癌症基因组图试验计划，全部的实施包括四个完整的内容：本月宣布的癌症基因组鉴定中心与整和数据中心，同时也包括上月宣布的生物核心资源，最后还有下月选出的基因组测序中心。癌症基因组图试验计划将以鉴别肺癌，恶性胶质瘤，卵巢癌这三类肿瘤的所有基因改变为目标，尤其对不同肿瘤亚型有用的改变。癌症基因组鉴定中心将鉴定诸如拷贝数量或者染色体易位的基因组异常，以此使的肿瘤患者的正确诊断与治疗成为可能，并且为肿瘤医学的个性化治疗提供了一种途径。
英文原文：
NIH Announces Two Integral Components of The Cancer Genome Atlas Pilot Project
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), both parts of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), today announced another two of the components of The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) Pilot Project, a three-year, $100 million collaboration to test the feasibility of using large-scale genome analysis technologies to identify important genetic changes involved in cancer. Lung, brain (glioblastoma), and ovarian cancers have been chosen as the tumors for study by TCGA Pilot Project.
Awards have been made to seven institutions in five states to establish Cancer Genome Characterization Centers (CGCCs). The Cancer Genome Characterization Centers will work as a network, with each center using advanced genome analysis technologies to identify major changes in the genomes of the cancers chosen for TCGA pilot program. NCI awarded a total of $11.7 million per year to support the CGCCs. The institutions receiving CGCC awards are:
• Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Mass. Using the Affymetrix platform, this center will identify changes in expression and copy number alterations that occur in cancer.
• Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Mass. Using the Agilent platform, this center will characterize tumor samples for alterations in chromosome segments copy number. This center will also develop new technologies to analyze expression profiles.
• Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, Calif. Using an Affymetrix Exon 1.0 array platform, this center will identify changes in the transcription profiles that occur in cancer.
• Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, N.Y. Using Agilent arrays, this center will provide characterization of chromosome segment gains and losses. This center will also develop new approaches to detect novel genetic rearrangements.
• The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md. This is a joint project with the University of Southern California/Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center to detect changes in methylation profiles associated with transcribed genes in cancer samples.
• Stanford University School of Medicine, Palo Alto, Calif. This center will use high-throughput whole-genome genotyping technology to identify chromosome segments copy number variation found in cancer.
• University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, Chapel Hill, N.C. Using an Agilent array platform, this center will identify changes in the transcription profiles that occur in cancer.
Additionally, SRA International Inc. of Fairfax, Va., has been selected to develop the Data Coordinating Center (DCC) for the TCGA Pilot Project. The DCC will track data produced by components of TCGA, ensuring that this data meets quality standards set for the project, and make TCGA data publicly accessible through databases supported by NCI’s Cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid (caBIG™ and the National Library of Medicine’s National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). The DCC will establish public data resources that scientists can use in their research to generate new insights into the causes and potential targets for interventions in cancer. Access to all TCGA data will be provided in a manner that meets the highest standards for protection and respect of the research participants.
TCGA was launched in December 2005. When fully operational, it will consist of four integrated components: the CGCCs and DCC announced today, as well as the Biospecimen Core Resource (BCR) announced last month, and the Genome Sequencing Centers, which will be selected in the coming months.
“We are, today, gaining new insights into the genetic changes that accumulate over a lifetime and are associated with malignancy,” said NCI Director John E. Niederhuber, M.D. “TCGA holds the potential to help turn what we know into what we can harness -- to be able to study changes in a patient’s genetic sequence over time and then use that information to design highly targeted, individually based interventions.”
“TCGA will analyze genomic changes in lung, brain, and ovarian cancers with a goal of identifying all alterations in genes for these three tumors -- especially those that can serve to differentiate cancer subtypes. The Cancer Genome Characterization Centers will identify genomic aberrations, such as copy number changes and/or chromosomal translocations that will enable the development of targeted diagnostics and therapies for cancer patients, and provide a path to more personalized cancer medicine,” said NCI Deputy Director for Advanced Technologies and Strategic Partnerships, Anna D. Barker, Ph.D.
“The Cancer Genome Atlas Pilot Project will generate large quantities of data that will require an immense amount of expertise and coordination,” said NHGRI Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D. “The Data Coordinating Center is an essential component of The Cancer Genome Atlas Pilot Project and will help researchers take advantage of the molecular information describing the genomic changes in the cancers studied. The integration of these data will enable individual researchers throughout the world to discover new cancer targets and inform the design of a new generation of cancer drugs.”
