The purpose of expO is to obtain cancer tissue samples under uniform and standardized conditions, perform gene expression analyses, and collect the long-term clinical outcome of the patient. The data is both collected and shared in a way to ensure the protection of patient confidentiality, while still making the "de-identified" information available online for researchers worldwide. Open and free access to the data will accelerate genetic discoveries and the development of tests and therapies.
"We overcame many challenges to perform complete gene analyses and to have the information freely available online, while also ensuring that we had addressed key issues of patient privacy and consent is a major step forward," said Robert Penny, M.D., Ph.D., Executive Director of expO and Chief Medical Officer of IGC. "Going from zero to 1,000 tumor samples in 16 months was also a considerable feat."
IGC has established a standardization system for obtaining and processing these tumor samples. This standardization of the collection, analysis, and vocabularies will help accelerate future development of new, targeted cancer treatments.
Tissue collection and data dissemination is conducted in a manner that fully protects patient privacy. Over a three-year period, IGC expects to obtain 2,000 to 3,000 tumor specimens representing a broad spectrum of malignancies and 500-1,000 normal tissues. The project is well on its way to meeting this goal. So far, IGC has collected a total of 5,083 biospecimens including frozen
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Contact: Galen Perry
gperry@tgen.org
602-343-8423
The Translational Genomics Research Institute
24-Oct-2005