Franciscan St. Francis Health, St. Vincent Health, Community Health Network join Cancer Genome Atlas Project

Dr. Christopher Doehring explains Franciscan St. Francis' role in the project to WIBC News Radio reporter Mike Corbin.

INDIANAPOLIS – Franciscan St. Francis Health, St. Vincent Health, and Community Health Network announced today their collaboration with The International Genomics Consortium (IGC) in Phoenix to serve as a critical network Tissue Source Site (TSS) to provide cancer tissue samples for analysis in the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH’s) historic project The Cancer Genome Atlas project (TCGA).

St. Francis, St. Vincent Health, and Community Health Network will provide cancer tissue samples under uniform and standardized conditions and also collect specific long-term clinical outcome data to facilitate research into the underlying cancer mechanisms.

IGC’s Expression Project for Oncology (expO) has combined its network and mission with TCGA to help create a comprehensive and coordinated effort to accelerate the understanding of the molecular basis of cancer through the application of genome analysis technologies, including large-scale genome sequencing.

The overarching goal of TCGA is to improve our ability to diagnose, treat and prevent cancer. TCGA is one of the largest initiatives to date to analyze such a wide array of cancers with so many different genomic analyses ranging from sequencing to methylation studies.

The genomic blueprints of each cancer will be available on the web for all scientists to have access to for translational discoveries. TCGA plans to analyze 500 tumors from each cancer type studied by the program and will provide the clinically annotated outcome data along with the complete genomic analysis on the web free of any intellectual property restrictions.

IGC plans to retain a portion of each sample that it provides to TCGA, if available, to expedite translational discoveries to help patient care, in work separate from TCGA.

“We look forward to supporting The Cancer Genome Atlas project and other initiatives at IGC through our research efforts here Franciscan St. Francis Health and continuing not only to provide world-class patient care, but also facilitating ground-breaking cancer research,” said Dr. Christopher Doehring, Vice President of Medical Affairs at Franciscan St. Francis Health.

“Community Health Network and St. Vincent Cancer Care are committed to bringing comprehensive, cutting-edge cancer care through a multi-disciplinary approach – including The Cancer Genome Atlas project - providing cancer tissue samples for research,” said Dr. Jeff Mossler, Principal Investigator at Community Health Network and St. Vincent. “By providing these samples, Community Health Network and St. Vincent are doing its part to advance the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer."

“We are honored to partner with St. Francis, St. Vincent Health, and Community Health Network on this historic NCI initiative to join in the fight against cancer,” said Robert Penny, M.D., Ph.D., IGC’s CEO and Principal Investigator for both the TSS and Biospecimen Core Resource components of TCGA.

David Mallery, J.D., M.B.A., IGC’s President noted that “Together with St. Francis, St. Vincent Health, and Community Health Network, we look forward to providing the critical biospecimens and data necessary to facilitate translational research.”

IGC thanks the National Cancer Institute, the National Human Genome Research Institute, Maricopa County, the City of Phoenix, Science Foundation Arizona, the Flinn Foundation as well as many of the pharmaceutical companies that have provided financial and leadership support to IGC.