NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – The Starr Foundation said last week that it has set aside $100 million to create a consortium of five international research institutions with the goal of advancing the fight against cancer. The consortium — called the Starr Cancer Consortium — includes the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Rockefeller University, and Weill Cornell Medical College. According to the Starr Foundation, the institutions will collaborate on “research aimed at understanding cancer at its most fundamental levels and at developing new approaches to the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of the many forms of the disease.” Key areas of focus for the consortium members include the creation or accelerated development of technology platforms to unravel the genetic and molecular basis of cancers; the application of these technologies in joint projects aimed at developing new and highly effective approaches to diagnosis and treatment; and support for basic biological research to provide insights into the fundamental molecular and cellular processes underlying cancer.