International Cancer Genomics Efforts - Marching Forward

I previously wrote about the International Cancer Genomics Consortium (ICGC)  and the promise of the genomics approach to solving some of the mysteries of cancers.


Earlier this month the ICGC released the latest round of data from a number of international sites that can now be used by researchers around the world.

From the ICGC web site: 

This update includes first data releases from France’s Liver Cancer project, Germany’s Pediatric Brain Cancer project, and the United Kingdom’s Myelodysplastic Syndrome Project. Also included are new submissions from the Australian Pancreatic Cancer project, the Canadian Pancreatic Cancer project, the Japanese Liver Cancer project, and the United Kingdom Breast Cancer (Triple Negative) project.


This data adds to previous data releases from the Chinese Gastric Cancer project, the Spanish Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia project and submissions from The Cancer Genome Atlas in the United States, which has contributed information on about 10 types of cancer affecting the blood, brain, breast, colon, kidney, lung, ovaries, rectum, stomach and uterus.


In total, 600 newly-available cancer datasets are provided in this release, with the ICGC data portal now containing data from 3,561 cancer genomes.

This clearly shows the power of collaboration and of open access to data generated by that collaboration.