Project Profile: Clinical Proteomic Technology Assessment for National Cancer Institute

NISS is working with the National Cancer Institute on the Clinical Proteomic Technology Assessment for Cancer (CPTAC).

Current cancer proteomic research is hampered by a lack of standardized technologies and methodologies, which are critically needed in order to more effectively discover and validate proteins and peptides relevant to cancer, or "biomarkers. NCI established a collaborative network of five CPTAC teams to address this critical need. The goal is to enable all researchers conducting cancer-related protein research at different laboratories to effectively use proteomic technologies and methodologies to directly compare and analyze their work. This should lead in turn to improved diagnostics, therapies and even prevention of cancer. NISS was brought into the project to provide statistical expertise and guidance on the project and to help coordinate the efforts of the five centers.

NISS is reviewing drafts of completed studies by the groups and providing expert critiques of these studies. NISS is also helping to design new multi-center studies that are under considerations by the working groups. These studies include digestion, bioinformatics and verification.

The five centers currently involved in this research include: Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Purdue University, University of California, San Francisco/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory/Buck Institute, and the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.