DCTD Convenes Breast Cancer SPORE Workshop to Promote Translational Cancer Research

Specialized Programs of Research Excellence (SPORE) grants involve both basic and clinical/applied scientists working together and support projects that will result in new and diverse approaches to the prevention, early detection, diagnosis, and treatment of human cancers. On July 9, 2018, the Translational Research Program (TRP) held a workshop (agenda) with translational scientists and clinicians from its five Breast Cancer SPOREs.

The Breast Cancer SPOREs are:

• Baylor College of Medicine
• Dana-Farber Harvard
• Mayo Clinic
• University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
• Vanderbilt University

The workshop was led by JoyAnn Rohan, PhD, Program Director, TRP, and was chaired by Ingrid Mayer, MD, Vanderbilt University, Breast Cancer SPORE co-Principal Investigator (PI). The goals of the workshop were to identify preclinical, translational research challenges, highlight advances, define resources and technologies, and foster collaborations among the Breast Cancer SPORE sites, patient advocates, and NCI staff.

The Breast Cancer SPORE PIs presented overviews of their programs in the morning sessions. Some highlights from the afternoon discussion sessions are noted below:

Resources and Technologies Available to the Breast Cancer Scientific Community

• NCI Cancer Research Data Commons (CRDC) - Assists the cancer research community with sharing diverse data types across programs and institutions and developing a set of reusable components to build interoperable data commons
• NCI Office of Data Sharing - Coordinates the interpretation and implementation of data sharing policies across NCI and advocates for the proper balance of open access, open source, broad data sharing policies
• Available Resources: NCI Genomic Data Commons; Broad Institute FireCloud ; Institute for Systems Biology ; Seven Bridges Genomics

Translational Breast Cancer Research

• Studying benign breast tissue for signatures, biomarker discoveries and transcriptomes
• Utilizing immunoPET-assisted, non-invasive immunotherapy targets in the preclinical and clinical settings
• Preclinical challenges and advances in the Breast Cancer SPOREs' Career Enhancement Program and Developmental Research Program projects
• Research opportunities for inter-SPORE collaborations were considered critical

Ingrid Mayer, MD, Chair of the Breast Cancer SPORE workshop, Vanderbilt University, Breast Cancer SPORE co-PI, speaks at the podium.

L to R: Charles Perou, PhD, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Breast Cancer SPORE co-PI; Eric Winer, MD, Dana-Farber/Harvard, Breast Cancer SPORE PI; JoyAnn Rohan, PhD, Program Director, TRP, NCI; Kent Osborne, MD, Baylor College of Medicine, Breast Cancer SPORE PI.