MAPPING CANCER
Cancer -- the mere mention of it scares most of us. More than one million americans are diagnosed every year. Thousands will die from the disease. Now, what researchers are doing to label more patients "survivors".
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Today, Stewart Campbell knows something big is about to happen.
As he watches the nation's largest fountain explode, he knows doctors are working on an even bigger project ... one that could find a cure for his cancer.
Stewart Campbell
Has cancer
"It's a malignant, stage four, melanoma, and it started from a spot on my left temple."
A cancer treatment that helps one patient may not work for the next. But, Doctor Robert Penny hopes the expo project will offer some answers.
Each of those dots tells a story about a patient, like how aggressive their cancer is and what treatments are working.
Expo stands for the expression project for oncology. Researchers gather hundreds of tissue samples from cancer patients and break down genes to find out which ones are causing problems.
Robert J. Penny, M.D., Ph.D.
Cancer Specialist
International Genomics Consortium
Phoenix, AZ
"They will make discoveries as to better test to predict how the cancers will behave. They will be able to make discoveries for better drugs to be able to go in and target specific cancers."
Researchers put that information online in a free database detailing the gene expression profiles of major cancers. The hope is to bring new cancer drugs to patients.
Robert J. Penny, M.D., Ph.D.
"We are going to get some cures under our belt, and we are going to be able to extend out survival."
Stewart Campbell
"The big thing is right up here; you've got to have the mindset."
With great minds around the world working to uncover cancer's clues, Stewart says he'll stick around for the answers.
The expo project targets breast, prostate, lung, colon and ovarian cancer, but it is not restricted to those cancers. It is the brainchild of the international genomics consortium -- a nonprofit group that's working to bring the world together to fight cancer.
BACKGROUND: More than 200,000 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year in the United States. More than 90,000 men will be diagnosed with lung cancer this year. There are dozens of different cancers people are diagnosed with everyday. For two different people, a tumor in the same exact site may have completely different reactions to standard cancer treatments. Researchers want to know why some people survive ... and why some people are killed by cancer. The answers may lie in the particular genetic make-up unique to each kind of cancer. A program called expO, which stands for the Expression Project for Oncology, seeks to catalogue each of the different genetic codes for specific cancers, giving oncologists a better handle on how different types of cancer should be treated.
MAPPING CANCER: Robert Penny, M.D., Ph.D., is working on expO with the International Genomics Consortium (IGC). He says, in simple terms, malfunctioning genes in certain cells cause cancer. We have nearly 40,000 genes in every cell. Each cell has an assigned function, so not all of those genes are functioning. Cells in your liver don't have the genes for tooth development turned on. However, when a cell is cancerous, certain genes are expressed that are actually functioning and working together to make that cancer either aggressive or non-aggressive. In the expO project, researchers record which genes are being expressed in certain tumors.
MISSION: Dr. Penny says their goal is to look at the genes that are turned on and the ones that aren't turned on and figure out which cancers are going to be aggressive. Making the information universally available to researchers is part of the plan. "We want to accelerate discoveries into patient care. And by providing it on the Web for worldwide scientists to use, and not charging a nickel for it, we believe that will accelerate these findings tremendously," Dr. Penny says. Continuing research will generate an evolving database of cancer. In the next few years, the goal is to create a database of the gene expression profiles of 2,500 human tumor specimens and 500 normal tissues collected under consented, standardized conditions. The information will also allow doctors to individualize cancer care. "Instead of one size fits all, as we frequently go through on the trial basis, we believe this will accelerate the individualization of patient care," says Dr. Penny.
Galen Perry
Director of Communications
International Genomics Consortium
445 North Fifth Street
Phoenix, AZ 85004
(602) 343-8423
gperry@tgen.org
www.intgen.org
Copyright © 2005 Ivanhoe Broadcast News, Inc.
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