This Time, It's Personal

This time, It's Personal The Ontario Institute for Cancer Research: Meeting the Cancer Challenge through Personalized Medicine Each year, 11 million people across the world are diagnosed with cancer, and 7 million people succumb to this dreadful disease. Despite years of intensive research, cancer remains a complex and formidable foe. The Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR) was launched at an inflection point in cancer genomics, with the advent of large-scale analyses of genes in tumors revealing that the mutation load in cancer is highly abundant. With advances in massively parallel sequencing technology, whole cancer genome sequencing has started. As part of an alliance with international funding agencies in Asia, Australia, Europe, and the United States, OICR cofounded the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC). The ICGC is designed to identify cancer-causing mutations involved in more than 25,000 tumors from over 50 types of cancer. OICR’s role in the ICGC includes hosting of the Data Coordination Centre and the ICGC Secretariat, in addition to tackling pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest cancers. Advances in understanding cancer heterogeneity using genomics will be realized in the context of an evolving landscape of clinical medicine that will better tailor interventions to patients, a concept widely referred to as “personalized medicine.” The understanding that the diversity of genomic alterations can lead to a similar clinical presentation has in turn created an understanding that therapies should not be guided only by clinical symptoms, but should also be based on an understanding of molecular, genetic, and functional alterations specific to each patient or subset of patients. OICR’s approach to tackling cancer is to create large, multidisciplinary, multi-institutional teams that build on the existing strengths in Ontario’s cancer research community. OICR has launched a number of innovation and translational programs that evaluate paradigms in personalized medicine that include modifying risk (Ontario Health Study), detecting cancer at earlier stages (One Millimetre Cancer Challenge), developing new tools for molecular diagnoses (Transformative Pathology) and selecting therapies based on molecular subtypes of cancer (Selective Therapies). OICR’s High Impact Clinical Trials program will support the introduction of personalized medicine strategies within cancer clinical trials, allowing the discoveries from OICR programs to be tested rapidly and effectively in well-designed clinical trials. OICR’s priority clinical challenges are: The high fatality of pancreatic cancer The overdiagnosis of prostate cancer The overaggressive treatment of early-stage breast cancer The insufficient participation in population-based screening programs, with a focus on colon cancer screening The long-term adverse effects of treatment affecting cancer survivors, specifically children and young adults Despite years of intensive research, cancer remains a complex and formidable foe. OICR will only succeed in its mission if personalized-medicine products and services are appropriately transferred to health-care agencies and institutions that deliver health care in Ontario. OICR has thus entered into a new partnership with agencies in the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care (including Cancer Care Ontario and the Ontario Medical Advisory Secretariat). This partnership will catalyze opportunities for translation of personalized cancer services and products in Ontario. The initial goals are to establish prognostic and predictive genetic tests in cancers that guide the proper and effective use of cancer therapies. With major partnerships in place with public organizations, research institutes, companies in the pharmaceutical, health-care and biotechnology sectors—as well as commercial organizations that invest in R&D—the Institute is ready to meet the cancer challenge. Tom Hudson is president and scientific director at OICR.

This Time, It's Personal

This time, It's Personal

The Ontario Institute for Cancer Research: Meeting the Cancer Challenge through Personalized Medicine

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Tom Hudson

Published In

December 2010

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