The world of cancer research and treatment may go through a very significant change in the next few years.
Last Tuesday, the Abramson Cancer Research Center at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania revealed a plan to form the "cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid" to increase the rate and efficiency of cancer research by providing a worldwide medium for the rapid exchange of discoveries.
"It's going to allow researchers to communicate with each other in a much more integrated way than ever before," Abramson Director John Glick said.
This initiative will "allow cancer centers across the country to share data about both cancer research and patient care," project coordinator David Fenstermacher said.
The National Cancer Institute believes that caBIG could have very significant implications for cancer research and treatment.
"A cure isn't necessary to eliminate the worst aspects of the cancer experience -- suffering and premature death," NCI Director Andrew von Eschenbach said in a 2003 interview on the NCI Web site.
"I do believe that by 2015, we can both eliminate some cancers as well as bring other cancers under control as chronic, manageable diseases, much like people today live with diabetes and heart disease," he added.
"The NCI sees this project as one of the main tools to get us to that goal," Fenstermacher said. By allowing researchers from all over the world to access other researchers' data, this information grid expedites the spread of new research and helps discoveries to be made.
Although it has great potential, caBIG has just begun its pilot phase, which should last about three years.
The initiative consists of three sets of "working groups," each with a different function.
The first of these groups is the Clinical Trials/Management Systems Group, which will develop software to allow the cancer center to better manage its trials.
The second group is the Integrated Cancer Research Group, which will research molecular means of storing information and develop a way to share data.
The third group is called the Tissue Banks and Pathology Tools Group, which will develop a new way of categorizing cancerous tissue samples and sharing those samples between researchers.
A similar network has been established in the physics world, Fenstermacher said, but such an effort is "new for the medical sciences."
Staff reporter Sharon Cantor contributed to this report.
