A partnership between the Susan G. Komen Tissue Bank and LifeOmic, a software company, aims to help researchers globally gain insights into how breast cancer develops, and ways of better treating and preventing it.
The world’s only repository for normal breast tissue and matched serum, plasma, and DNA, the Komen bank will use LifeOmic’s Precision Health Cloud (PHC) platform for genomic, clinical and imaging aggregation and analysis, in addition to its survey capabilities.
“We are passionate about sharing our research resources with scientists worldwide,” Jill Henry, COO of the tissue bank, said in a press release. “Using LifeOmic’s PHC will expand the Virtual Tissue Bank’s capabilities to help fuel ongoing treatment and prevention discovery.”
Established by researchers at the Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center and Indiana University School of Medicine, the tissue bank furthers breast cancer studies by providing high-quality samples to researchers worldwide.
Scientists can now use Komen’s Virtual Tissue Bank to access donors’ medical history, request tissue, and download existing data. But they are unable to access genomic information — the current system doesn’t support it.
LifeOmic and the Komen Tissue Bank will work to put the Virtual Tissue Bank on the secure, scalable PHC platform, giving scientists access to an enhanced data model that includes whole-genome sequencing information. PHC analytics tools will add genomic, clinical, and imaging data to tissue bank participants’ clinical histories.
“The Precision Health Cloud was created to break down silos that exist between current systems, to help advance precision health,” said Don Brown, MD, CEO and founder of LifeOmic. “We are thrilled to partner with the Komen Tissue Bank because of our shared goal to break down silos and help its mission to end breast cancer by enabling advanced research using PHC.”
More than 6,000 women have donated breast tissue to the Susan G. Komen Tissue Bank since 2007, which was created to make breast tissues from volunteer donors with no clinical evidence of breast disease available to researchers. The repository fosters characterization of the molecular and genetic basis of normal breast development, and comparisons with different types of breast cancer.
LifeOmic’s cloud-based software securely aggregates, stores, and analyzes patient data necessary for precision therapies. Its PHC is a repository of all patient data.