New Cancer Consortium to Study 25K Samples

July 10, 2008

By hammersmith

[Source Genome Technology News, Julia Karow] – An international research consortium plans to catalog genetic alterations in 50 different types of cancer in what amounts to be the largest human genome resequencing project launched to date.
The International Cancer Genome Consortium, which launched in late April, was created to serve as an umbrella for existing and future cancer genome projects worldwide.

Over the next decade or so, the group will use new sequencing technologies and other molecular tools to comprehensively analyze approximately 25,000 cancer genome samples for a total estimated cost of $1 billion, and to make the data publicly available.

“It’s very much the next-generation sequencing technologies which are driving this consortium,