NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – The Scripps Translational Science Institute has joined the Primary Human Tumor Consortium, an effort to build a library of primary human tumors, Jackson Laboratory announced this week.
The goal of PHTC, which is being headed by Jackson Lab, is to develop highly targeted cancer therapies.
Scripps will provide solid human tumor samples to Jackson Lab, which will graft them into mouse models. Jackson Lab will perform the initial genomic characterization of the tumors and share the data with other participating institutions of PHTC. They include the University of Florida, the Swedish Neuroscience Institute in Seattle, and the University of California, Davis Cancer Center.
"By joining this consortium, Scripps will contribute to and share in a tumor library that will vastly exceed what any institution could build on its own," Nicholas Schork, director of bioinformatics and biostatistics at Scripps, said in a statement. "This shared resource ultimately will greatly expand research capacity for all consortium members, with the goal of accelerating drug development for individualized approaches to each type of tumor."