International Cancer Genome Consortium

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The International Cancer Genome Consortium, founded in 2008, is a voluntary scientific organization that provides a forum for collaboration among the world's leading cancer and genomic researchers. It is funded by participating nations, each of which focuses on one or more forms of cancer, with the goal of mapping the genomes of at least 50 different types of cancer.^[1] The consortium's secretariat is located at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research in Toronto, Canada,^[2] which will also operate the data coordination center. The provincial Government of Ontario provided funding of $40 million, and each participating funding member is expected to contribute $20 million toward each project. Current members include Britain, Canada, China, France, India, Japan, Singapore, and the United States. Australia and the European Commission have observer status. ICGC membership is open to all entities that agree to follow its principles and guidelines.

The ICGC is one of most ambitious biomedical research efforts since the Human Genome Project. The Consortium will help to coordinate current and future large-scale projects to understand the genomic changes involved in various cancers of global concern. The catalogues produced by ICGC members will be made rapidly and freely available to qualified researchers, which will enable scientists around the globe to use the new information to develop better ways of diagnosing, treating and preventing many types of cancer.

The aim of the ICGC is to provide a comprehensive description of the somatic (non-inherited) genomic abnormalities present in the broad range of human tumors. Given our current knowledge of the heterogeneity of tumor types and subtypes, the ICGC set a goal of coordinating approximately 50 projects, each of which will generate the genomic analyses on approximately 500 cancer samples of each class. It is well recognized, however, that cancer is highly heterogeneous and hundreds of types/subtypes can be defined. Therefore, the stated goal of 50 ICGC projects is not intended to, and cannot, exhaustively cover the full spectrum of cancer types.

ICGC Funding and Research members proposing a project must agree to the ICGC’s policies, which include requirements for rapid data release, for rigorous quality standards and for protection of study participants.

The complete list of the ICGC Goals, Structure, Policies and Guidelines is available at http://icgc.org/home