EC to be included in NCI study to map its genome

Great news in the fight to find better treatments and hopefully a cure for Esophageal Cancer. From the ECAN June newsletter.

Esophageal Cancer to be part of
Groundbreaking Research at NCI

The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) project of the National Cancer Institute (NCI)
will start work this month on including
Esophageal Cancer (EC) in its cutting edge research to map the genome of at least 20 other cancers.

For more than a year, ECAN advocated for inclusion of EC in this research that holds the potential for significant progress in fighting and preventing cancer. EC was not initially included in the research in part because of challenges in obtaining sufficient tissue samples. Earlier this year, ECAN offered assistance to overcome those issues. In late May, NCI agreed to include EC in TCGA and invited ECAN to participate in the working group planning the research.

"This project has immense potential to open important areas of biological inquiry into esophageal cancer development and to identify new therapeutic targets for this deadly disease," said Dr. Adam Bass of the Gastrointestinal Cancer Center at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. "I commend ECAN for their tireless advocacy that helped make this project a reality."

Cut and paste this link to read the entire June ECAN newsletter http://ecan.convio.net/site/MessageViewer?em_id=1322.0&dlv_id=6481

Best,
Cindy