The database aims to enhance researchers’ ability to identify important mutations in a patient’s tumor and connect the researchers to drugs that can target those mutations.
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“It’s relatively easy now to sequence the DNA of tumors — to gather the raw information — but there’s a big interpretation problem,” said the article’s senior author Obi L. Griffith, PhD, an assistant professor of medicine at the medical school. “What do these hundreds or thousands of mutations mean for this patient?”
The database includes aggregated information. Any researcher can create an account and contribute. A team of editors and moderators, who are cancer genomics experts, curate the information included in the resource.
The database has, thus far, seen over 17,500 users from academic institutions, governmental organizations and commercial entities.
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