New addition to COSMIC database will collate available drugs to target cancer mutations
The Catalogue of Somatic Mutations in Cancer (COSMIC), based at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, has launched a new feature that will allow users to see which drugs are available to target specific cancer mutations. This new resource is another piece of the puzzle in the quest to make precision oncology a reality for all cancer patients.
The COSMIC Mutation Actionability in Precision Oncology product, known as Actionability*, will allow users to search drugs that target somatic mutations at all stages of drug development, including those still in development, in clinical trials or that have been repurposed.
COSMIC is the world’s most comprehensive knowledge centre for cancer mutations. Manually curated by a team of experts at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, it includes data from more than 37 million somatic mutations across the genome, spanning 1,500 types of cancer. It integrates data on multiple different types of mutation seen in cancer genes and genomes, as well as data on gene expression, gene function and 3D protein structure. Users can view or download the data in multiple ways.
Knowing which mutations a tumour needs to survive, and which drugs can target those mutations, is the key to precision oncology. The new Actionability resource identifies relationships between types of cancer, specific mutations and available drugs, providing users with robust, detailed and up to date information about the current range of targeted precision medicine drugs, along with many still under experimental trials.
“COSMIC Actionability is another important step in our development as the world’s highest quality and most comprehensive public resource in precision oncology. In this field, we first need to know which mutations drive cancer, and secondly what we can do about those mutations. While COSMIC is a key resource for mutation analysis, Actionability will help us to answer the second question and support development across the full patient journey, from analysis to therapy.”
Dr Zbyslaw Sondka, Science team leader at COSMIC, based at the Wellcome Sanger Institute
Actionability will be updated regularly across each year, in line with the wider COSMIC platform.
“Although there are other cancer actionability resources available, they tend to rely on being updated by volunteers in the cancer research community. One of the primary advantages of COSMIC Actionability is that it is built by dedicated expert curators and will be constantly updated with information about new trials, trial results and new genes. ”
Steve Jupe, curator of Actionability at COSMIC, based at the Wellcome Sanger Institute
More information
* Actionability is available at: https://cancer.sanger.ac.uk/actionability
Funding:
Actionability was funded by COSMIC commercial income and Wellcome.
