NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) — BGI and the Vancouver Prostate Centre (VPC) said today they have established the BGI-VPC Joint Research Laboratory.
The goal of the sequencing and translational research facility — BGI's first collaboration with a Canadian research institute — will be to discover and advance basic and translational programs in oncology, including personalized oncology, by applying genomics research to develop new biomarkers and cancer therapies.
The lab's initial primary focus will be on bladder, kidney, and prostate cancer, although the collaboration could be expanded to include other cancers of special interest to the organizations.
In addition, with the participation of Yuzhuo Wang, senior scientist at VPC and the BC Cancer Agency, researchers will use clinically relevant patient-derived xenograft models to dissect the inner workings of tumors. The organizations said they anticipate that future collaborative research will include agriculture and environmental research.
"The primary focus of this agreement is to achieve a deeper understanding of advanced and drug-resistant cancers with the implicit goal of improved quality of life for patients," Colin Collins, professor at the University of British Columbia and senior scientist and director of the Laboratory for Advanced Genome Analysis at VPC, said in a statement.
"With our contribution of next-generation sequencing equipment and advanced data processing and analysis, we expect the Joint Research Laboratory to make significant discoveries resulting in new, validated therapeutic targets as well as new molecules for commercial development," Yingrui Li, CEO of BGI Tech Solutions, added.