AACR Clinical Data-sharing Launched

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PM Cancer Centre is serving as one of seven world leading genomics institutions involved.
Posted On: November 11, 2015
On November 6, the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) launched an international initiative called Genomics, Evidence, Neoplasia, Information, Exchange (GENIE) that will enable the sharing of clinical genome sequencing data between world leading genomics institutions.
 
The PM Cancer Centre is one of the founding members, along with four institutions in the United States (including the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston; and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York), an institution in France (Institut Gustave Roussy; Villejuif) and an institution in the Netherlands (Center for Personalized Cancer Treatment; Utrecht). The project also includes two informatics partners (Sage Bionetworks, Seattle and cBioPortal, New York).
 
“The need for GENIE is great,” said Charles L. Sawyers, MD, AACR Project GENIE Steering Committee chairperson, 2015-2017. “Numerous factors are driving an increase in the amount of genomic data available for analysis; however, these data are typically insufficient in number or lack the necessary information to be clinically meaningful. Thus, to effectively benefit patients, genomic and clinical outcomes data from as many institutions as is practical should be combined through a data-sharing initiative.”
 
GENIE data will be made accessible following defined periods of project exclusivity, and the initial genomic data set is now publicly available. The shared registry already has close to 15,000 genomic records that are enriched for late-stage cancers on which clinical decisions have been made. As new patients are seen at the participating institutions, this data will continue to grow, further contributing to the overarching project goal to improve patient treatment decisions and catalyze clinical and translational research.