Cancer Target Discovery and Development (CTD2)
Overview
The purpose of the Cancer Target Discovery and Development (CTD2) initiative is to bridge the gap between the enormous volumes of data generated by the comprehensive and multidimensional molecular characterizations of a variety of human cancers and the ability to apply the information to improve patient outcomes. Specifically, CTD2 aims to extract therapeutic targets and diagnostic, prognostic, and drug response markers from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Therapeutically Applicable Research to Generate Effective Treatments (TARGET), Cancer Genomic Characterization Initiative (CGCI) and other data sets. The CTD2 centers have established a highly collaborative network to achieve these goals. By sharing validated candidates with the cancer research community, CTD2 will contribute to understanding the mechanism(s) of cancer and potentially accelerate development of clinically useful markers and therapeutics for evidence-based treatments.
Research
The CTD2 initiative seeks novel molecular insights into cancer etiology that can be developed and in the future applied to improve therapeutic strategies. To achieve this goal, each center utilizes a distinct array of advanced computational and functional systems biology approaches. These approaches allow reconstruction of cell-context specific gene networks that underlie each cancer subtype. The network gains power from having both complementary and reinforcing expertise. Highlighted below are a few of the technologies:
- Bioinformatics
- Chemical genetics
- Genome-wide gain of function
- Genome-wide loss of function
- Protein-protein interactions
- Speedy mouse models
Resources
CTD2 provides open-access to the data generated. Each center drafts a description of their project(s) and experimental approaches to facilitate data interpretation and validation by the community at large, as well as provides links to commonly used analysis tools and brief descriptions of these tools. These resources have been or will be made available no later than at the time of publication.
Centers
To view a list of the centers and projects that comprise the CTD2 network, visit the CTD2 Centers page. More detailed information is also accessible on the CTD2 data matrix.
Data
The data generated by the centers can be downloaded from this user-friendly data matrix. The data matrix webpage contains an explanation of the data as well as links to the data release policy.
