The Minister of Science and Technology and Vice President of Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Dr Harsh Vardhan virtually inaugurated the 2nd TCGA 2020 conference and workshop India.

Government of India has reiterated its commitment to reduce the burden of cancer in the country by employing latest technologies in the genomics, proteomics, metabolomics and artificial intelligence and machine learning- mediated data analysis.

Union Minister acknowledged the efforts of the consortium comprising of scientists and clinicians from across the world, who have come together to build an Indian Cancer Genomics Atlas (ICGA).

Focus should be on important issues of – uniformity and integrity of specimens representing different parts of India, to make Indian Cancer Genomics Atlas (ICGA) useful for clinicians throughout India. There are several large-scale mission mode projects taken by the Government such as Genome India, IndiGene Nutrition Mission etc. All these aimed at improving clinical outcomes in the cancer and other chronic diseases. Oncologists, Researchers, Scientists, and Academicians from India, USA, UK and Bangladesh are participating in international conference.

About TCGA

    • The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) is one of the most ambitious and successful cancer genomics programs to date. 

    • The TCGA program has generated, analyzed, and made available genomic sequence, expression, methylation, and copy number variation data on over 20,000 primary cancer and matched normal samples spanning 33 cancer types.

    • This joint effort between the US- National Cancer Institute and the National Human Genome Research Institute began in 2006, bringing together researchers from diverse disciplines and multiple institutions.

    • Over the years, TCGA generated over 2.5 petabytes of genomic, epigenomic, transcriptomic, and proteomic data.

    • The data, which has already led to improvements in the ability to diagnose, treat, and prevent cancer, will remain publicly available for anyone in the research community to use. 

    • On similar lines, the establishment of an ‘Indian Cancer Genomics Atlas (ICGA)’ has been initiated by a consortium of key stakeholders in India led by CSIR, Government of India in which several government agencies, cancer hospitals, academic institutions and private sector partners.

(The author is a trainer for Civil Services aspirants. The views expressed here are personal.)