Last Updated: 05/07/10
Strategic Partnering to Evaluate Cancer Signatures (SPECS)
Overview
The goals of the SPECS programs are:
- To translate molecular signatures/profiles derived from comprehensive molecular analysis of tumors to improved patient management and ultimately improved patient outcomes.
- To establish strategic partnerships that bring together the interdisciplinary teams needed to evaluate the potential clinical utility of molecular signatures.
- To evaluate molecular signatures previously correlated with important clinical parameters such as recurrence, survival or response to therapy.
- To confirm and refine the molecular signatures.
- To develop robust, reproducible assays for the signatures that can be incorporated into clinical validation trials.
These multi-institutional, multi-disciplinary teams include investigators from the Clinical Co-operative Groups, SPOREs, Cancer Centers, NCI intramural, the National Laboratories, community hospitals and individual academic institutions in the US and Europe.
SPECS Projects
- Molecular Signatures of Lung Cancer
- Molecular Signatures to Improve Diagnosis and Outcome Prediction in Lymphoma
- Biological Breast Cancer Classification by qRT-PCR
- Evaluation of Predictive Signatures of Prostate Cancer
- Diagnostic and Prognostic Sarcoma Signatures
- Leukemia Signatures for Risk of Classification & Targeting
The Future of SPECS
The NCI invites investigators to form NEW strategic partnerships that will bring together the multi-disciplinary expertise and resources needed to determine how the information derived from comprehensive molecular analyses can be used to improve patient care and, ultimately, patient outcomes. The SPECS II Funding Opportunity Announcement encourages the submission of grant applications for support of the clinical application of multi-analyte molecular signatures derived from comprehensive molecular annotation of tumors: Strategic Partnering to Evaluate Cancer Signatures (SPECS II) (PAR-10-126).
The full text of this Funding Opportunity Announcement is available in the NIH Guide at http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-10-126.html
There will be one receipt date per year in 2010, 2011 and 2012 for this competition.
Contacts:
Dr. Tracy Lively, livelyt@mail.nih.gov
Dr. James V. Tricoli, tricolij@mail.nih.gov
Read More...
NCI's SPECS Program Explores Molecular Diagnostics in Cancer
NCI Cancer Bulletin
July 5, 2006
http://www.cancer.gov/ncicancerbulletin/NCI_Cancer_Bulletin_070506/page3
In Memoriam: NCI's Dr. James W. Jacobson
NCI Cancer Bulletin
January 10, 2010
http://www.cancer.gov/ncicancerbulletin/011210/page11
Related Links
TARGET
NCI's Therapeutically Applicable Research to Generate Effective Treatments (TARGET) Initiative seeks to identify valid therapeutic targets in childhood cancers so new, more effective treatments can be developed.
Director's Challenge: Toward a Molecular Classification of Cancer (1998-2004)
At a time when technologies for comprehensive molecular analysis of human tissues were still emerging, the investigators of the NCI Director's Challenge consortium achieved proof of principle that profiling the activity of large numbers of genes in a sample of tumor tissue could provide meaningful information about the clinical outcome for a cancer patient. Several of the signatures discovered by Director's Challenge investigators have been further developed through the SPECS initiative and are entering prospective clinical trials and commercial development.
