Collaborates with Karkinos Healthcare, Mumbai, the Chennai Breast Clinic and Cancer Research and Relief Trust, Chennai

IIT Madras in collaboration with Karkinos Healthcare, Mumbai, the Chennai Breast Clinic and Cancer Research and Relief Trust, Chennai analysed the data and assembled the anonymised summary of genetic variants from Indian breast cancer samples.

Prof V Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras, recently announced the completion of the Indian breast cancer genome sequence generation and released the ‘Bharat Cancer Genome Atlas’ (BCGA) on the campus.

The institute has made this database publicly accessible at bcga.iitm.ac.in to researchers and clinicians in India and abroad.

Highlighting the benefits to not just India but the global research community from ‘Bharat Cancer Genome Atlas’, Prof Kamakoti, said, “True to our ‘IITM for All’ commitment to society, we are releasing yet another health-related data, the second this academic year, the Cancer Genome data after the Brain Data. We hope this will provide deep insights into the reasons leading to this deadly disease and help prevent the same with early interventions. The Atlas fills the gap in the genomic landscape from different cancers in the country. It provides a compendium of genetic variants representing the contemporary Indian breast cancer population to classify variants involved in early diagnostics, disease progression, and treatment outcomes.”

The Research was led by the Institute’s Centre of Excellence on Cancer Genomics and Molecular Therapeutics, which was funded under the Government of India’s ‘Institutions of Eminence’ initiative.

Elaborating on this initiative, Project Coordinator Prof S Mahalingam, Head, Centre of Excellence on Cancer Genomics and Molecular Therapeutics, IIT Madras, said, “This database will be an invaluable resource to identify cancer-specific biomarkers in India, which will enable early detection of breast cancers. Further, it will also be useful to identify novel drug targets for developing better treatment strategies specific to the Indian population.”

Further, Prof Mahalingam added, “BCGA also aims to host data from researchers working on cancer genomics across cancer types and would be open to accepting submissions. The data will be utilised towards identifying biomarkers to identify high-risk groups, monitor cancer progression, design strategies for personalized treatment and understand treatment outcomes.”