How Can You Contribute to the Improvement of Cancer Diagnosis, Treatment and Prevention?

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Latinos, you may not know how important it is for cancer researchers to have racial/ethnic biospecimens.

Increasing the number of Latino biospecimens—or samples of biological material, such as blood, urine, saliva, tissue, tumors, etc.—will be critical to accelerating our understanding of the molecular basis of cancer and creating a more accurate genome in many types of cancers that disproportionately affect Latinos.

This, in turn, will lead to the development of better diagnostic tools; and ultimately, to improve our ability to diagnose, treat and prevent cancer among all people.

The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) is a joint effort between the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI).

TCGA uses an integrated approach of connecting hundreds of researchers across the cancer care continuum with the intent of broadening knowledge and understanding of the underlying molecular basis of cancer through the application of various genome analysis technologies, including large-scale genomic sequencing. TCGA is examining a very large number of samples, up to 500 samples for each tumor type, that will provide the statistical power needed to produce a comprehensive genomic profile of each cancer.

TCGA bears the significant laboratory costs of comprehensively processing and characterizing biospecimens from the TCGA genomics datasets and across multiple genomic platforms and then, standardizing, and integrating the data and clinical annotation across all the contributing sites. Software is available for a broad range of data management and associated analysis tools.

For more information on how you can help/participate, visit the TCGA website or contact Susan Serice of the Institute for Health Promotion Research at The UT Health Science Center at San Antonio at serice@uthscsa.edu.