Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-jbqgn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-02T19:38:32.131Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - An Introduction to The Cancer Genome Atlas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2013

Bradley M. Broom
Affiliation:
The University of Texas
Rehan Akbani
Affiliation:
The University of Texas
Kim-Anh Do
Affiliation:
University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center
Zhaohui Steve Qin
Affiliation:
Emory University, Atlanta
Marina Vannucci
Affiliation:
Rice University, Houston
Get access

Summary

Introduction

The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) is an ambitious undertaking of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), jointly led by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), to identify all key genomic changes in the major types and subtypes of cancer. In the following section, we briefly review the history and goals of the TCGA project. Section 2.3 describes how samples are collected and analyzed by the TCGA. Section 2.4 details how data are processed, stored, and made available to qualified researchers. Section 2.5 briefly surveys several widely available tools that can be used to analyze TCGA data. Section 2.6 summarizes the chapter.

History and Goals of the TCGA Project

At the turn of the century, it was clear (Balmain et al., 2003) that genomic alterations played a key role in cancer development and progression and that understanding these changes would be enormously important for devising improved methods for diagnosing clinically relevant cancer subtypes and for developing novel molecular therapies aimed at a specific cancer subtype. Several successful treatments for targeting cancer cells with specific genomic changes had been developed – for instance, Gleevec for chronic myeloid leukemia and Herceptin for breast cancer. Early experiments to determine the genomic basis of specific cancers had made it clear that the scope of the genomic changes concerned was enormously complex: an individual cancer could involve hundreds or thousands of genomic alterations, and these changes were for the most part specific to the cancer concerned.

Type
Chapter
Information
Advances in Statistical Bioinformatics
Models and Integrative Inference for High-Throughput Data
, pp. 31 - 53
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×