Genedata Collaborates with EUR12.6M European Cancer Research Consortium
Genedata announced its partnership with the Infections and Cancer (INCA) consortium, a European Commission research program to discover the role of chronic infection in the development of cancer. The Swiss-based bioinformatics company will provide research informatics for the consortium's efforts to improve cancer diagnosis and treatment.
An estimated 17% of human cancers are caused by chronic infection. Cancer results from the progressive accumulation of genetic changes to the body's healthy regulation of cell growth. It arises when these changes cause cells to proliferate uncontrollably. The International Agency for Research on Cancer recognizes 9 viral and bacterial agents that appear to provoke this biological chain of events.
"INCA will help researchers develop new prevention measures and treatments against cancers such as leukemia, stomach cancer, and cervical cancer", explained Professor Thomas Schulz, INCA's principal coordinator based at Hannover Medical School, Germany. The consortium will focus on five viruses and one bacterium, the gut-dwelling Helicobacter pylori, to investigate how chronic infections and inflammation can interfere with normal cellular functioning.
Techniques like gene expression profiling reveal 100's or even thousands of genes that are apparently active in a particular disease state. Such results require specialized statistical processing. INCA will exploit existing biological knowledge of inflammatory pathways to interpret high throughput data measuring transcriptomic, proteomic and metabolomic activity. Professor Schulz added, "Genedata's informatics resources will help us gain the best advantage from genome-wide experimental investigations".
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