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Using this knowledgebase, researchers may search for associations between molecular drug targets, diseases, and drugs specific for childhood cancers.

With funding from NCI’s Childhood Cancer Data Initiative, researchers at Oregon Health & Science University’s Knight Cancer Institute have shared new data from pediatric, adolescent, and young adult patients with Acute Myeloid Leukemia.

Genomic studies of childhood and rare cancers got a major boost, as a new optimized workflow for managing these data was recently reported in Nature Communications. And, thanks to funding by NCI’s Childhood Cancer Data Initiative, it’s easier and faster to share those data with the cancer research community.

NCI’s Childhood Cancer Data Initiative has launched an inventory of childhood cancer data sets, repositories, and resources for investigators and data scientists alike.

If you’re attending the 2022 American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting (either in person or virtual), don’t miss these data science sessions, poster presentations, and the NCI exhibit booth, where you can hear more about our programs and activities!

NCI has just launched the Molecular Characterization Initiative, fostering data sharing in childhood cancer research. This program offers tumor molecular characterization to children, adolescents, and young adults who have been diagnosed with central nervous system tumors and are being treated at hospitals affiliated with an NCI-supported clinical trials group, “Children’s Oncology Group.” The DNA and RNA in participants' tumors are analyzed through this voluntary, free program. Once data is available, cancer researchers will be able to access the data via the Cancer Research Data Commons.

Interested in making data discoverable to the larger research community? Share your perspective with NIH, who wants to know how to improve data searchability and discovery. Cancer researchers, data submitters/generators, data users, and technology providers should respond by December 3, 2021.

CBIIT Director, Dr. Tony Kerlavage, along with NCI staff and a host of experts in childhood cancer research, recently published an article, “Cancer Informatics for Cancer Centers (CI4CC): Scientific Drivers for Informatics, Data Science, and Care in Pediatric, Adolescent, and Young Adult (AYA) Cancer,” in JCO Cancer Clinical Informatics. The article summarizes the Fall 2020 CI4CC Symposium and showcases the scope of initiatives underway to address childhood cancer, with a particular emphasis on how data science and informatics are helping to support these initiatives.

This Request for Information is intended to obtain information to formulate a procurement strategy for a data platform to support the National Childhood Cancer Registry, a component of the larger Childhood Cancer Data Initiative.

The Childhood Cancer Data Initiative invites researchers capable of performing molecular characterizations (e.g., whole exome sequencing, RNA sequencing) to submit a proposal to develop a childhood cancer molecular characterization protocol by April 12, 2021.