The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) has announced the Genomics, Evidence, Neoplasia, Information, Exchange (GENIE) project, in which several academic medical centers from the US and Europe will participate. Although cancer centers are collecting huge amounts of information on tumor genomes, much of the resulting analysis is not helpful in finding drugs to treat most patients. GENIE will provide an organized way for researchers to share data on rare mutations not specifically targeted by therapies, and on individual cases of a patient receiving a drug for a type of cancer different from the one for which the drug was approved. Data sharing might allow researchers to draw conclusions on these patients’ mutations, treatments and prognoses. Currently, the project database has information on 17,000 patients, with the goal of 100,000 within five years.

Source: Science