Originally published January 15 2006
Cancer organizations join efforts to product atlas that maps cancer's genomic changes
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
NIH News reports that a collaborative venture between the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) has produced The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), an effort to map genomic changes that occur in the various forms of cancer.
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), both part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), today launched a comprehensive effort to accelerate our understanding of the molecular basis of cancer through the application of genome analysis technologies, especially large-scale genome sequencing.
The overall effort, called The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), will begin with a pilot project to determine the feasibility of a full-scale effort to systematically explore the universe of genomic changes involved in all types of human cancer.
The project will develop and test the complex science and technology framework needed to systematically identify and characterize the genetic mutations and other genomic changes associated with cancer.
TCGA will delve more deeply into the genetic origins leading to this complex set of diseases, and, in doing so, will create new discoveries and tools that will provide the basis for a new generation of cancer therapies, diagnostics, and preventive strategies.
Given the genetic complexity of cancer, we are certain to face many daunting challenges in this pilot.
But by pulling together some of the best minds in the cancer and genomics research communities, I am confident that the pilot will succeed, and we will go on to develop an atlas that will accelerate cancer research in ways we cannot even imagine today."
Key challenges for the TCGA Pilot Project include not only addressing cancer's complexity, but also developing the technologies to advance the science of cancer genetics.
These successful developments support further examination of the molecular origins of cancer to more quickly develop new tools to diagnose, treat, and prevent cancer.
Only if the pilot achieves its goals will the full-scale project to develop a complete atlas of the cancer genome move forward.
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