Virginia G. Piper Cancer Center at Scottsdale Healthcare and Arizona Cancer Center to Send Tissues to the International Genomics Consortium

Medical centers to serve as a key network Tissue Source Sites for the National Institutes of Health's The Cancer Genome Atlas project

PHOENIX, June 22, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Virginia G. Piper Cancer Center at Scottsdale Healthcare and the University of Arizona Cancer Center announced today that the institutions have agreed to collaborate with The International Genomics Consortium (IGC) to serve as a critical network Tissue Source Site (TSS) to provide cancer tissue samples for analysis in the National Institutes of Health's (NIH's) historic project The Cancer Genome Atlas project (TCGA).  

The Virginia G. Piper Cancer Center at Scottsdale Healthcare and the Arizona Cancer Center will provide cancer tissue samples under uniform and standardized conditions and also collect specific long-term clinical outcome data to facilitate research into the underlying cancer mechanisms.

IGC's Expression Project for Oncology (expO) has combined its network and mission with TCGA to help create a comprehensive and coordinated effort to accelerate the understanding of the molecular basis of cancer through the application of genome analysis technologies, including large-scale genome sequencing.  

The overarching goal of TCGA is to improve our ability to diagnose, treat, and prevent cancer. TCGA is one of the largest initiatives to date to analyze such a wide array of cancers with so many different genomic analyses ranging from sequencing to methylation studies.

The genomic blueprints of each cancer will be available on the web for all scientists to have access to for translational discoveries. TCGA plans to analyze 500 tumors from each cancer type studied by the program and will provide the clinically annotated outcome data along with the complete genomic analysis on the web free of any intellectual property restrictions.  

IGC plans to retain a portion of each sample that it provides to TCGA, if available, to expedite translational discoveries to help patient care, in work separate from TCGA. Additional information on TCGA may be found at http://cancergenome.nih.gov/.

Scottsdale Healthcare has been a keystone partner of IGC since IGC's formation and has been critical to IGC's success in accelerating genomic discoveries to patient care.  

"We look forward to supporting The Cancer Genome Atlas project and other initiatives at IGC through the Virginia G. Piper Cancer Center and Scottsdale Healthcare Research Institute. This is the latest in a series of collaborative projects between Scottsdale Healthcare and IGC, another example of our commitment to advances in personalized medicine and treating the most challenging cancers," said Mark Slater, Ph.D., Vice President, Research, Scottsdale Healthcare.

"We look forward to supporting The Cancer Genome Atlas project and other initiatives at IGC through our research efforts here at the Arizona Cancer Center and continuing not only to provide world-class patient care, but also facilitating ground-breaking cancer research," said David S. Alberts, M.D., Arizona Cancer Center Director.

The Arizona Cancer Center's involvement in the Tissue Source Site network furthers IGC's collaboration in Arizona and brings in both the Tucson and Phoenix campuses of the University of Arizona. The University of Arizona also leases lab and office space from IGC at the Phoenix Biomedical Campus for women's health research and for Flow Cytometry.

In addition, the Arizona Board of Regents recently approved plans for a University of Arizona Cancer Center clinic at the Phoenix Biomedical Campus near the IGC. Plans call for construction of the $135 million, 250,000-square-foot outpatient clinic to begin by the end of 2011.

"We are honored to partner with the Virginia G. Piper Cancer Center at Scottsdale Healthcare and the Arizona Cancer Center on this historic NCI initiative to join in the fight against cancer," said Robert Penny, M.D., Ph.D., IGC's CEO and Principal Investigator for both the TSS and Biospecimen Core Resource components of TCGA. 

David Mallery, J.D., M.B.A., IGC's President noted that "Together with the Virginia G. Piper Cancer Center at Scottsdale Healthcare and the Arizona Cancer Center, we look forward to providing the critical biospecimens and data necessary to facilitate translational research."

"Participation from patients and medical centers around the country is key," said Erin Curley, M.B.A., IGC's Vice President of Strategic Initiatives.

"Having a network of hospitals and medical centers around the country that contribute a variety of cancers is vital to the project in order to gather enough tissue to map a genomic profile of each cancer to gain better insights on how to best attack the disease," Curley said.

IGC thanks the National Cancer Institute, the National Human Genome Research Institute, Maricopa County, the City of Phoenix, AmeriPath Quest, US Oncology, Science Foundation Arizona, the Flinn Foundation as well as many of the pharmaceutical companies that have provided financial and leadership support to IGC and our initiatives.

About IGC
The International Genomics Consortium (IGC) is a non-profit medical research foundation established to expand upon the discoveries of the Human Genome Project and other systematic sequencing efforts by combining world-class genomic research, bioinformatics, and diagnostic technologies in the fight against cancer and other complex genetic diseases. IGC serves numerous common, unmet needs including: the standardization of the collection of properly consented tissues of interest, the molecular characterization of these tissues, and standardization in the representation and analysis of these results. IGC participates in the translation of genomic discoveries to improve patient care and increase the speed in which new diagnostic, prognostic, and predictive testing, and their associated new drug and treatment regimens are developed. For more information, visit www.intgen.org.

About the Virginia G. Piper Cancer Center at Scottsdale Healthcare
The Virginia G. Piper Cancer Center at Scottsdale Healthcare has partnered with IGC since 2002 as its collaborator of record and is one of the first U.S. cancer centers to participate in IGC's

Expression Project for Oncology (expO), including housing the project's initial laboratory in the center's research pavilion. The not-for-profit Virginia G. Piper Cancer Center at Scottsdale Healthcare opened in 2001 as the first comprehensive cancer center in greater Phoenix to offer Phase I clinical trials and other advanced research, diagnosis, treatment, prevention and support services in a single location. The Scottsdale Healthcare cancer program holds Accreditation with Commendation from the Commission on Cancer of the American College of Surgeons. A leader in medical innovation, talent and technology, Scottsdale Healthcare was founded in 1962 and is based in Scottsdale, Arizona. For more information, visit www.shc.org.

About the Arizona Cancer Center
The Arizona Cancer Center is the only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center headquartered in Arizona. With primary locations at the University of Arizona in Tucson, the Cancer Center has more than a dozen research and education offices in Phoenix and throughout the state and 300 physician and scientist members work together to prevent and cure cancer. For more information, go to www.arizonacancercenter.org.

SOURCE Scottsdale Healthcare