Philadelphia Coalition for a Cure (PC4C) and Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC) are partnering on a clinical research initiative to aid in the diagnosis of adult and pediatric brain tumors. The collaboration will leverage NantHealth’s GPS Cancer™ molecular profiling platform to help inform treatment decision making. Data resulting from the partners’ studies will be shared with the global research community.
PC4C is a newly established regional clinical diagnostics and research initiative, which includes members from the Division of Neurosurgery and Center for Data Driven Discovery at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), as well as from the Hyundai Cancer Institute at CHOC and departments within the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, Drexel University College of Medicine, Thomas Jefferson University, and Cooper Medical School of Rowan University.
“Through the PC4C, CHOP, CHOC, and the leading adult Philadelphia institutions are coming together to define a new clinical and research collaborative ecosystem that harnesses partnerships among leading academic centers, commercial partners, and payers in order do what needs to be done on behalf of patients—identify therapies and accelerate discovery,” commented Jay Storm, M.D., chief of the Division of Neurosurgery at CHOP. “With the guidance of the GPS Cancer test, neurosurgeons, oncologists and the many others who are making influential decisions are newly empowered because of the level and depth of information that this product brings. Together we're embarking on an incredibly exciting journey toward revolutionizing cancer care.”
GPS Cancer is a molecular scan that has been developed to aid personalized cancer therapy. Available through NantHealth, the technology integrates whole-genome DNA and transcriptome sequencing with qualitative proteomics through mass spectrometry to generate a molecular profile of an individual patient’s cancer and assessment of protein pathway function. GPS Cancer is also an enabling technology for the Cancer Breakthroughs 2020 initiative, which aims to facilitate the development of combination immunotherapy approaches against cancer.
As well as carrying out clinical research studies, PC4P collaborators plan to open up possibilities in data-driven discovery by sharing information through open science initiatives. PC4P will make all patient-consented data accessible to the research community through Cavatica, a cloud-based data analysis and storage platform that has been developed to allow researchers to access, share, and analyze data on multiple childhood diseases, including pediatric cancers, congenital disorders, epilepsy, and autism. Cavatica was launched in October 2016 by the Children’s Brain Tumor Tissue Consortium (CBTT) and the Pacific Pediatric Neuro-Oncology Consortium (PNOC), which together represent more than 20 pediatric hospitals that are committed to sharing data to help speed drug discovery and development.
“This collaborative initiative between Cancer Breakthroughs 2020 members and PC4C member institutions and our shared commitment to accelerating discovery through data empowerment on behalf of patients is poised to transform care for brain tumor patients by generating the largest, accessible, genomic data cohort for discovery in brain tumors across all ages,” said Adam Resnick, Ph.D., director of the Center for Data Driven Discovery in Biomedicine at CHOP. “Only through an authentic commitment to rapid and comprehensive data sharing will true progress be made. Together, members of the PC4C look forward to further expanding their collaboration network to develop additional clinical trial protocols, carefully studying elements such as standard of care, leading-edge technologies like GPS Cancer, patient selection criteria, and appropriate combinations of targeted and immunotherapy approaches.”
