Monday, November 16, 2015

Open Source For Cancerous Genome


Researchers from WuXi-NextCode, based in Shanghai, China, will sequence the genomes of 1000 cancer patients to identify new cancer-causing mutations and make the resulting database freely available to researchers.  The information could be used to develop new precision cancer treatment and make them available to people worldwide.  Doctors, cancer specialists and surgeons in San Antonio will help collaborate by gather tumor samples from patients with breast, lung, prostate, skin, colorectal, uterine, pancreatic, ovarian, stomach, brain cancer and blood sample with germline DNA, that does not carry mutation found in cancerous tissue.  NextCode is a spinoff from deCODE genetic based in Iceland where its technology was developed to handle analyzing and storing whole genome data from 350,000 people and validating more than 40 million variants.
This is interesting and could be useful for any of us who have plans to go into genetics or Oncology.  We could help find cures for cancer and NextCode would help with allowing everyone who uses it to share their findings and collaborate with each other.  I know that WuXi PharmaTech, the company that purchased deCODE for $65 Million in January, have a local lab in Philadelphia. I don’t think the local lab is part of this program but I do know they are constantly looking for scientist for their labs.


Tags: NextCode, deCODE, Cancer genome, open source sharing, WuXi PharmaTech

1 comment:

  1. This is very invteresting and could serve as great strides in the development of cancer research. This study could help treat many cancers as well as open up jobs for many people around the world. It'll be interesting to see how the results of these experiments play out.

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