Therapeutically Applicable Research to Generate Effective Treatments (TARGET)

The Therapeutically Applicable Research to Generate Effective Treatments (TARGET) Initiative is committed to focusing genomics tools to rapidly identify potential therapeutic targets in childhood cancers so that new, more effective treatments can be developed in shorter time and ultimately bring new hope to children and their families who face the devastating burden of these diseases.

The TARGET Initiative seeks to identify the genomic changes associated with the following childhood cancers:

  • Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL)

    - a fast-growing type of blood cancer in which too many immature white blood cells are found in the blood and bone marrow.

  • Neuroblastoma

    - Cancer of cells of the sympathetic nervous system.

The research conducted by TARGET is divided into three distinct yet tightly integrated components that together form a system for selecting new molecular targets for the development of novel therapies for these childhood cancers:

  • Genomic Characterization

    – Gene expression studies (using high-resolution array-based methods to determine differences in the patterns of gene expression in cancer samples and non-cancerous samples) and genome structure studies (using high-resolution array-based methods to characterize genome structural changes that correlate with each cancer, such as chromosome region gains and losses) are integrated to provide a complete genomic "overview" of each cancer.

  • Gene Resequencing

    - Up-to-date genetic sequencing techniques are used to "read" genes that have been identified to have altered expression and/or structural alterations to identify the specific cancer-related mutations in the DNA sequence.

  • Identification of Therapeutic Targets

    – RNA interference (RNAi) is used to identify and initially validate potential targets identified from the genomic characterization and resequencing efforts.

To learn more about the Therapeutically Applicable Research to Generate Effective Treatments (TARGET) Initiative, visit http://target.cancer.gov/.

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