The Cancer Genome Atlas and the Rare Tumor Project
All the DNA contained in your cells makes up your personal genome which is packaged into 2 sets of chromosones; one set from your mother, the other set from your father.
In comparison to the English alphabet with 26 letters (A through Z) our chromosones are composed of six billion DNA letters.
Genomics is the study of the sequence of these letters in your DNA and how each string of letters passes information to help each cell in your body work properly.
http://cancergenome.nih.gov/
Dr. Jimmy Lin, MD, PhD, MHS presented a webinar: Understanding Cancer in the Age of Genomics,
http://www.cholangiocarcinoma.org/media.htm
The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) has set a goal of identifying 500 cases for each cancer selected.
That however is not possible for a rare cancer such as ours and it is for that reason that the Rare Tumor Project has been developed with the aim to character at least 50 cases across 9 rare cancer types.
Cholangiocarcinoma is one of those 9 designated cancer types.
http://cancergenome.nih.gov/cancersselected/Cholangiocarcinoma
In the year 2012, the Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation appropriated funding of $40.000 to the UCSF Hepatobiliary Tissue Bank. An additional 44.000 had been granted to the Mayo Clinic. These institutions allocated portions of their collected tissue and blood samples to the Cancer Genome Atlas Rare Tumor Project.
Dr. Supriya Saha, Mass. General – Dana Farber Cancer Institute, received the Young Investigator Grant of 60.000 for his research project “Modeling Cholangiocarcinoma” This project is to characterize the genetic profile of cholangiocarcinoma and to develop genetic models for novel therapies.
http://www.cholangiocarcinoma.org/media.htm
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