Breast cancer tissue and controls
Investigation into causal genes underlying anaplastic meningioma
CUTseq data for study EGAS00001008261
Overview. The personalization of therapy for cancer will require molecular characterization of unique and shared genetic aberrations. In particular, patients who have a sarcoma or other rare cancers and are candidates for clinical trials could potentially benefit by identifying eligibility for "targeted" drugs based on the "actionable" genes in their specific tumor. Growing technological advances in genomic sequencing has now made it possible to consider the use of sequence data in a clinical setting. For instance, comprehensive testing that includes whole exome and transcriptome sequencing may identify biomarkers for predictive or prognostic purposes and thereby inform treatment choices and prevention strategies. Thus, the translation of high throughput next generation sequencing would support a "personalized" strategy for cancer. However, the translation of clinical sequencing bears unique challenges including identifying patients who could benefit, developing informed consent and human subjects protections, outlining measurable outcomes, interpreting what results should be reported and validated, and how results should be reported. In addition, we know very little about how patients and clinicians will respond to the potentially confusing and overwhelming amount of information generated by genomic sequencing, and we lack model processes for clinically evaluating and presenting these data. For the promise of our innovative biotechnologies to be realized, "translational genomics" research that evaluates genomic applications within real-world clinical settings will be required. This proposal brings together expertise at the University of Michigan including clinical oncology, cancer genetics, genomic science/bioinformatics, clinical pathology, social and behavioral sciences, and bioethics in order to implement this clinical cancer sequencing project. Three integrated Projects have the following themes: Project 1) "Clinical Genomic Study" will identify patients with a rare cancer (i.e., 15 out of 100,000 individuals per year) who are eligible for clinical trials, consent them to the study, obtain biospecimens (tumor tissue, germline tissue), store clinical data, and assemble a multi-disciplinary Sequencing Tumor Board to deliberate on return of actionable or incidental genomic results; Project 2) "Sequencing & Analysis" will process biospecimens and perform comprehensive sequencing and analysis of tumors to identify point mutations, copy number changes, rearrangements/gene fusions, and aberrant gene expression; Project 3) "Ethics & Psychosocial Analysis" will observe the expert review process for evaluating sequence results and will examine the clinician and patient response to the informed consent process, delivery of genomic sequence results, and use of genomic results.
