NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Four cancer centers have joined the Oncology Research Information Exchange Network, a research collaboration aimed at improving the understanding of cancer at the molecular level.
The new members are City of Hope, University of Virginia Cancer Center, University of Colorado Cancer Center, and University of New Mexico Cancer Center, and they join ORIEN's anchor members, the Moffitt Cancer Center and the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center-Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC-James).
With the addition of the new members, more than 50,000 new patients each year will have the chance to donate their tissue and clinical data, including genomic data, for research directed at elucidating molecular information about cancer, according to Thomas Sellers, center director and executive vice president at Moffitt. The goal of ORIEN, launched last spring, is to develop more targeted cancer treatments.
Additional cancer centers are in the process of joining ORIEN, Moffitt and OSUCCC-James said.
"Through ORIEN, we will ensure that the multiethnic, multicultural populations of New Mexico and the American Southwest, primarily Hispanic, non-Hispanic White, and American Indian, will benefit from new personalized cancer medicine initiatives," UNM Cancer Center Director and CEO Cheryl Willman said in a statement. "In turn, the inclusion of our patients may allow ORIEN to uncover unique cancer-causing mutations and mechanisms associated with the distinct patterns of cancer incidence, mortality, and disparity that affect minority and special populations."