NEW YORK, May 9-A major nonprofit gene expression analysis project will soon be setting up shop in Phoenix, Ariz.
The International Genomics Consortium, a research foundation backed by academic institutions, pharmaceutical and research companies, is now launching its first project, a comprehensive oncology gene expression database.
In this project, normal and cancerous tissue samples will be collected from a broad array of clinical centers and analyzed at the new Phoenix lab. The expression database will be publicly available.
The organizers aim to analyze more than 10,000 cancerous samples and at least 1,000 normal samples. So far, 19 clinical centers and hospitals have agreed to provide tissue to the project.
Pilot analysis efforts are now underway at Scottsdale Healthcare in Scottsdale, Ariz. IGC researchers are running brain and colon cancer tissue specimens on a range of commercial microarrays.
The project will be headed by the National Human Genome Research Institute scientific director Jeffrey Trent, according to a news article in today's issue of Nature.
George Poste, AmeriPath genomic strategies chief Robert Penny and NHGRI computational genomics chief Andreas Baxevanis are also advising the project.