Educational Session: “Data-Driven Comparative Oncology Research: Intelligent Integration of Human/Pediatric and Canine Cancer Data to Fuel Discovery and Accelerate Drug Development” at Paws for a Cure Research Symposium

Dr. Connie Sommers, NCI program director and Integrated Canine Data Commons (ICDC) team member, will highlight how NCI is leveraging data from precision medicine and Cancer Moonshot^SM canine immunotherapy initiatives like the Pre-medical Cancer Immunotherapy Network for Canine Trials (PRECINCT). Data harmonized and housed within the ICDC allows researchers to compare canine data with relevant human data sets.

Dogs can develop many of the same types of cancer as humans, and cancer treatments that are safe and effective for dogs often work well for people. The ICDC is the latest repository in NCI’s Cancer Research Data Commons, a cloud-based infrastructure with repositories that feature genomics, proteomics, and now canine data. By collecting data on dogs with naturally occurring cancer, researchers can compare with and learn more about human tumor pathways, how a type of cancer metastasizes, and what treatments may be effective for both canine and human cancer patients.