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caBIG™ Feature – November 2006
Analyzing Brain Cancer In a "Big" Way
An NCI Initiative Addresses the Problem
Recently, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) launched a novel large-scale research project to help meet these challenges. The first initiative, conceived of and conducted by the Neuro-Oncology Branch of NCI’s Center for Cancer Research, serves to gather as many brain tumor specimens as possible and analyze their molecular underpinnings. Called the Glioma Molecular Diagnostic Initiative (GMDI), the project derives its name from the medical origin of most primary brain tumors, the so-called glial cells of the brain.
The GMDI draws its strategy from other contemporary efforts such as The Cancer Genome Atlas Project, which seeks to define the genetics of brain, lung, and ovarian cancers. The main idea is to collect a plethora of tumor samples from health care practitioners at a large group of collaborating institutions both within and outside of the NCI. At the same time, investigators involved in the clinical trials also can record information about patient responses and add it to the pool of treatment knowledge.
Once samples are gathered, researchers can sift through the DNA from a multitude of tumor samples, in search of "patterns" of genes, genes that mark a certain kind of tumor. This information will help to classify cancer by genetics rather than by where in the body the tumor first appeared or its anatomy underneath the microscope. Ultimately this "molecular profiling," as it is dubbed by researchers, partnered with clinical results from treatment, could lead to therapies best tailored to each molecular diagnosis.
Collaboration among many institutions as well as clinical and laboratory investigators also dismantles the two most daunting hurdles of brain cancer: accruing enough patients into clinical trials so that researchers can collect significant data about patient progress and responses to treatment; and also providing a large variety of tumor samples so that scientists can study many subtypes of brain tumors in molecular and genetic detail.
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