“Effort to end cancer by partnering with 11 medical powerhouses”
KU joins the International Cancer Proteogenome Consortium
▲ Prof. Sang Won Lee (left), Director of the Center for ProteoGenome Research (CPGR), and former US Vice President Joe Biden (right)
Korea University has become an official member of the International Cancer Proteogenome Consortium (ICPC).
ICPC is an international consortium which grew out of the Cancer Moonshot Initiative launched by the Obama Administration. The consortium aims to raise the awareness of the international community about the urgent need for more cancer research and to speed progress in cancer research by encouraging collaboration among cancer proteogeonome researchers and by standardizing and sharing data.
The Cancer Moonshot Initiative was launched to enhance cancer prevention, early detection and cure development by marshaling the resources of the US federal government. The title of the innovative project draws an analogy between discovering the cure for cancer to landing on the moon for the first time. Joe Biden, former US Vice President, who lost his eldest son to brain cancer, is leading the project.
The key to developing precision medicines aimed at preventing and treating cancer is the proteogenome data of individual patients. The Applied Proteogenomics Organizational Learning and Outcomes consortium (APOLLO), part of the Cancer Moonshot Initiative, is the largest inter-departmental partnership project of the US federal government. It routinely screens the tumors of 6,000 lung cancer patients, all of whom are military veterans, in order to collect their proteogenome data in hopes of providing targeted, individualized therapies.
KU’s Center for Proteogenome Research (CPGR) has signed an MOU in clinical proteogenomics cancer research with the Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium (CPTAC) of the US National Cancer Institute (NCI). It was announced by Biden during the HUPO 2017 Global Leadership Gala Dinner in Dublin, Ireland at which time KU officially became a member of the consortium. This ensures that Korea can play a greater role in research into cancer proteogenomics, as two Korean institutions, i.e. KIST and KU, are now official ICPC members.
Under the MOU, KU will work hand-in-hand with 21 institutions from 11 countries, including the US, Germany, Japan and Australia, focusing primarily on stomach cancer and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. In 2017 KU’s CPGR (Director: Prof. Sang Won Lee) initiated proteogenomic studies in the field of pancreatic cancer in order to develop technologies that can predict the refractoriness of pancreatic cancer, with the support of the National Agricultural Genome Program of the Korean Ministry of Science, Future Planning and ICT.