Neuro-Oncology Community
The Neuro-Oncology Community is a site designed to share clinical and molecular data from pediatric brain and spinal cord tumors in a visually interactive fashion that makes it more accessible and understandable to providers and researchers. Our hope is that this ever-expanding site will serve to advance the understanding and improve the treatment of these debilitating and, often, deadly diseases.
Over the past decade, a tremendous surge of biological information has transformed our understanding of pediatric central nervous system (CNS) tumors. Technological advancements, such as next generation sequencing and methylation, have facilitated molecular interrogation of tumor and patient samples. The result is that pediatric CNS diseases, once thought to be uniform entities, are being dismantled and broken down into a variety of molecular groups, subgroups, and subtypes. These findings have been enlightening and, in some cases, have led to transformative alterations to care. However, in most instances, we suspect that key findings and results are buried in the mountains of data that has been generated. This data is voluminous, multifaceted, poorly aggregated and, often, inaccessible to the very providers and researchers that can make connections necessary to transform treatment.
To address this challenge, we are building this Neuro-Oncology Community to deposit data in digestible and user-friendly formats that expands access to all disciplines. By aggregating the clinical and molecular data together through state-of-the art visualizations we aim to reduce reliance on technical staff and computing resources and improve access for all levels of researchers. As a result, users can draw out features for hypothesis-generating discovery. We predict that previously overlooked low frequency driver aberrations will be more discoverable, rare subsets will be more easily identified and explored, clinical behavior of tumors by therapeutic intervention will be more readily assessed, and unmet needs of patients will be recognized.
To begin, we are launching this community with the following studies:
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Rare CNS Embryonal Tumors Here we characterize 70 tumors previously thought to belong to a single tumor type. By aggregating multi-omic approaches with clinical features and treatment practices we show that these tumors are better classified as distinct methylation-groups. Interactive visualizations support these groupings and allow a user to compare and contrast the groups as well as explore treatment related results. To access the Rare CNS Embryonal Tumor samples on Genomics Platform, go here.
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Infant High-Grade Glioma Here we re-characterize 56 tumors previously diagnosed as High-Grade Glioma in patients younger than 5 years-old. Using histology, next generation sequencing, and methylation we show that these tumors are heterogeneous and divisible into 4 major groups that have vastly divergent outcomes.
Our aim is to grow this community site with studies such as these.
This platform has been funded, at least in part, by American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities and National Cancer Institute Cancer Center Grant (P30CA021765), St. Jude Comprehensive Cancer Center Developmental Funds, and The Press On Fund.