Overview
Funds for year three were released in November 2004 and the period of performance was extended to March 31, 2006. Funding was provided by the FY'04 Defense Appropriation.
In response to advice given by our external advisory board, the scope of our work for year three involved a more defined focus on validating one or more molecular targets of cancer that predict cancer risk, diagnosis, prognosis, and response to treatment.
The NFGC selected a project by Dr. Tim Yeatman to support and provided funds for microarray chips to push his research project closer to validation of a molecular signature for colon cancer diagnosis and prognosis. With preliminary data, Dr. Yeatman identified a 43 gene classifier of colon cancer prognosis, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (15:3526-35, 2005) and submitted for patent protection (Timothy Yeatman, M.D., non-provisional filing, 2/25/05: “Methods For Predicting Cancer Outcome And Gene Signatures For Use Therein”). On 5/29/08, Moffitt announced a licensing agreement with Xceed Molecular, Inc. that resulted from this project. Please click here for more information. It is anticipated that the additional support provided by the NFGC for this project will lead to further validation of these results, which will then be marketed as a signature for prediction of colon cancer survival. Furthermore, Dr. Yeatman's project has unlimited potential to discover additional signatures for not only colon cancer but many other cancers as well.
In mid 2005, Dr. John Koomen was successfully recruited to join the NFGC at Moffitt as the scientific director of the Proteomics facility. One of Dr. Koomen's first initiatives was to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of this core facility and recommend equipment and personnel needed to improve capabilities.
Shortly thereafter, the NFGC also successfully recruited Dr. Mary Edgerton to lead the Bioinformatics shared facility. In this role, Dr. Edgerton was responsible for storage and retrieval of the experimental and clinical data that are fundamental to the NFGC. Although Dr. Edgerton did not remain at Moffitt, her hard work played a vital role in establishing the foundation for these initiatives. In 2006, Dr. David Fenstermacher was hired to replace Dr. Edgerton. Dr. Fenstermacher was highly recommended to us by our board member, Michael Becich, and has proven to be an invaluable asset.
This year also saw the establishment of the Maui Institute for Molecular Medicine (MIMM) initiative. This is a genomics and proteomics project that brings together tissues collected by Dr. Tim Yeatman, protein expression profiling performed by Dr. Richard Caprioli at Vanderbilt University, and data analysis performed on the Department of Defense-funded supercomputer located in Maui that is supervised by Dr. Maqsudul Alam. The goal of this project is to show how identification of biomarkers in tumors can be done more rapidly by collaboration and using the power of supercomputing.
During this fiscal year, the NFGC's first Affiliate at Vanderbilt Medical Center was successfully funded for its “Advanced Proteomics Program for Assessment of Disease Progression and Therapeutic and Clinical Outcomes.”
On September 29, 2005 the 3rd Annual External Advisory Board meeting was held. Please click here for details of this important meeting.