The National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the National Human
Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), both part of the National
Institutes of Health (NIH), today announced the first three
cancers that will be studied in the pilot phase of The Cancer
Genome Atlas (TCGA) project. The cancers to be studied in the
TCGA Pilot Project are lung, brain (glioblastoma), and ovarian.
These cancers, which collectively account for more than 210,000
cancer cases each year in the United States, were selected
because of the availability of biospecimen collections that met
TCGA's strict scientific, technical, and ethical requirements.
"The selection of the first three cancer types to be studied by
TCGA signals the scientific start of this initiative. Thanks to
the tools and technologies developed by the Human Genome
Project, scientists can collaborate to determine whether it will
be possible to develop a useful atlas of the changes in the
human genetic blueprint associated with all types of cancer,"
said NIH Director Elias A. Zerhoun