First Three Cancers Chosen for Cancer Genome Atlas Pilot

WASHINGTON—Brain, lung, and ovarian cancers have been chosen as the first cancers to be studied in the pilot phase of The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) project, according to the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI). These cancers, which collectively account for more than 210,000 US cancer cases each year, were selected because of the availability of biospecimen collections that met TCGA's requirements. TCGA was launched in December 2005 as a collaborative 3-year pilot project to test the feasibility of using large-scale genome analysis technologies to determine all of the important genomic changes involved in cancer.

The lung cancer biospecimens will come from CALGB's Lung Cancer Tissue Bank at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston. The source of the brain tumor (glioblastoma) specimens will be M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. The ovarian cancer biospecimens will be provided by the Gynecologic Oncology Group tissue bank at the Children's Hospital of Ohio State University, Columbus.