TARGET Program
The National Cancer Institute’s Therapeutically Applicable Research to Generate Effective Treatments (TARGET) program employs genomics technologies to rapidly identify therapeutic targets in childhood cancers. Ten children’s hospitals and pediatric research centers linked through caBIG® are TARGET collaborators.
caBIG®-enabled Scientific Discovery
Recently, a group led by researchers at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital identified mutations in a gene that predicts a high likelihood of relapse in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). The gene, called IKZF1, may form the basis for future diagnostic tests if the initial results are validated. An accurate molecular test to identify this prognostic biomarker may help physicians prescribe the most appropriate therapy for suitable patients. A collaborative research team made this discovery utilizing data from the TARGET initiative, facilitated by analysis using caBIG® applications.
Collaboration Portal Shares TARGET Data
The same TARGET data used by these researchers is accessible through the TARGET data portal and the caBIG®- enabled Cancer Molecular Analysis (CMA) portal. In fact, a diverse collection of genomic and clinical data from TARGET and other NCI projects is currently available through the CMA Web portal.
Using caIntegrator, the CMA Web portal helps researchers collect and correlate clinical outcomes data with genomic data from these data sets. Through caIntegrator, the integrative research capabilities of the CMA portal are also now locally available to researchers, allowing them to easily create customized translational research Web portals for their own study data quickly, without the need for programming skills.
View the TARGET Data Portal for access to genomic and gene expression characterizations and gene sequencing for five cancers.
