The Broad, Dana-Farber, ST. Jude has started a $ 60 million childcancer collaboration

Three institutions are called this type of academic collaboration, MIT and Harvard Broad Research Institute, Dana Far Bar Cancer Research Institute When St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Announced that it will contribute $ 60 million in five years to take a serious gap on knowledge about biological basics of pediatric cancer and to deal with more effective treatment methods.

Collection of the project called Children’s cancer addiction promoter, Supports infrastructure development and more than 80 researchers, data scientists, and related research staff. As each organization adds staff to support work, the number of team members is expected to exceed 100.

The Cross Functional Group focuses on the three major diseases.brain tumor, hematological malignancyWhen solid tumor– And combine the overall knowledge of cancer in data science, functional genomics, and large drug screening.

This project is Charles WM Roberts, MD, PHDSt. Jude General Cancer Center Director. Kimberry Stegmeyer Medical Doctor, Vice Chair of Dana Furber Cancer Research Institute, pediatral research.When Dr. Franciska BasketkesBroad Institute Cancer Dependency Map Project Director.

“Despite the many progress, cancer is still the number one cause of death due to a US child’s illness,” Roberts said in a press release. “To understand the mechanism and develop new treatments, it may take decades in the lab. Through this project, you will quickly identify the vulnerabilities in the treatment of pediatric cancer by jumping over the barrier. I believe that they can be converted much more quickly into clinical targeted therapy. “

Pediatric Cancer Dependencies Accelerator is a priority study for developing new treatments for progressive children’s cancer:

• Develop and develop genome editing technology to identify hidden vulnerabilities (dependency) of various high -risk pediatric cancer, solid cancer, and blood cancer.
• Utilizing new technologies, it features genetic and epigenetic situations in childhood cancer.
• Developing a model system that does not currently have a model system for high -risk pediatric cancer with poor prognosis.
• Effective combined therapy and drug -resistant mechanisms are identified and shortened the timeline for developing new treatments.When
• Development of calculation approaches for mining and integration of data and development of innovative software tools for sharing data.

To achieve that goal, the accelerator will bind and build an open year of innovative research from each of the three institutions.

for example, St. Jude Washington University Children’s Cancer Genome Projecthas sequenced the complete normal and cancer genomes of 600 childhood cancer patients in a $65 million collaboration initiated in 2010. At that time, most cancer research focused on adults. Upon completion of the project, we will have the complete normal and cancer genomes of 800 children, as well as his sequences of whole exomes and whole transcriptomes of his 1,200 patients, including 23 different cancers. was

However, the development of new target treatment for pediatric cancer requires more than genome data. Specialized knowledge about broad calculation is essential for the project.this is cancer dependence map (DEPMAP) Initiative has developed a wide range of datasets and computational infrastructure that influenced research and target discovery programs around the world. Released in 2015, Children’s cancer -dependent map project (Peddep) has functioned as a concept demonstration for applying the Depmap approach to pediatric cancer.

Examples of the success of two programs at Broad include the successful deployment of a whole-genome CRISPR screening tool used to find cancer vulnerabilities in adults. They have also been shown to be effective means of investigating the vulnerability of childhood cancers, which often have simpler genomes. This work also developed a large -scale drug screening function.

“Peddep Accelerator demonstrates deep cooperation and the ability to combine interdisciplinary teams throughout the world to work on important illnesses that affect children around the world,” said Vazquez. increase. “Through data sharing and tool development, we are working on creating resources that the science community can be used to truly affect pediatric cancer.”

ST. Jude and Dana-Farber provide expertise in the creation of a different type of transplantation (PDX) model derived from the patient. Because this model uses patient-derived cancer cells, it more closely matches the biology of the disease seen in the clinic. Computational biologists at St. Jude contribute to epigenome and genomic characterization analysis, data visualization, and computational pipeline development.

“Our first -generation pediatric cancer -dependent map project has been a huge success, but it’s just a corner of the iceberg,” said StEGMAIER. “Peddep Accelerator will clarify the new and very needed treatment targets, and also clarify the basis of a wide range of pediatric cancer and provide treasure trove of data to our research community.”