Research from the Chinnaiyan Lab on the Cover of Nature

By Nicole Fawcett | Cover Photo by Ella Marushchenko and Elina Karimullina (Ella Maru Studio, Inc.) | 29 Aug

August 17, 2017 Cover of NatureIn one of the largest and most comprehensive efforts to examine the genetic and molecular landscape of advanced cancer, Dr. Dan Robinson, et al in Dr. Arul Chinnaiyan's laboratory in the Department of Pathology sequenced the DNA and RNA of 500 patients with metastatic cancer. The results are published in the August 17 Nature cover story, Integrative clinical genomics of metastatic cancer. 

“This is a more comprehensive approach than most commercially available clinical sequencing programs. Our results suggest value on several levels to this more detailed approach,” says senior study author Arul Chinnaiyan, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Michigan Center for Translational Pathology.

The data reflects the first 500 patients with solid tumors to enroll in the Michigan Oncology Sequencing Program, a research protocol that began in 2010, sequencing the DNA and RNA of metastatic cancers and normal tissue to identify alterations that could help drive treatment. The program includes a precision medicine tumor board in which experts discuss each case. Mi-ONCOSEQ was among the first comprehensive clinical sequencing programs offered for cancer patients.

The patients represented in the Nature paper spanned more than 30 types of cancer, with metastases in 22 different organs. It includes only adults with solid tumors, although Mi-ONCOSEQ is available to patients with blood cancers and to children.