Genedata announces its partnership with the Infections and Cancer (INCA) consortium, a European Commission research programme to discover the role of chronic infection in the development of cancer. The Swiss-based bioinformatics company will provide research informatics for the consortium's efforts to improve cancer diagnosis and treatment.
An estimated 17 per cent of human cancers are caused by chronic infection. Cancer results from the progressive accumulation of genetic changes to the body's healthy regulation of cell growth. It arises when these changes cause cells to proliferate uncontrollably. The International Agency for Research on Cancer recognizes 9 viral and bacterial agents that appear to provoke this biological chain of events.
"INCA will help researchers develop new prevention measures and treatments against cancers such as leukaemia, stomach cancer, and cervical cancer", explained Professor Thomas Schulz, INCA's principal coordinator based at Hannover Medical School, Germany. The consortium will focus on five viruses and one bacterium, the gut-dwelling Helicobacter pylori, to investigate how chronic infections and inflammation can interfere with normal cellular functioning.
Techniques like gene expression profiling reveal 100's or even thousands of genes that are apparently active in a particular disease state. Such results require specialized statistical processing. INCA will exploit existing biological knowledge of inflammatory pathways to interpret high throughput data measuring transcriptomic, proteomic and metabolomic activity. Professor Schulz added, "Genedata's informatics resources will help us gain the best advantage from genome-wide experimental investigations".
"We are proud to provide the research informatics infrastructure for this important cancer research program", says Dr. Othmar Pfannes, CEO of Genedata AG. Genedata will integrate high throughput molecular data and provide quantitative data analysis and training services. Dr. Pfannes added, "Our computational solutions are tailored for collaborative settings and provide a valuable informatics foundation for consortia-based research efforts".
INCA began operation on January 1st this year and will run for 4 years. It will receive €12.6M of EC funding (Project INCA: LSHC-CT-2005-018704) as part of Europe's Framework 6 Life-Science-Health program and involves 30 research institutes and enterprises hailing from 13 European countries.
Genedata specializes in discovery informatics for biotech, pharmaceuticals and the life sciences. The company offers expertise in research informatics combined with open and scalable computational solutions.