Francis Collins, director of the US National Human Genome Research Institute, said Tuesday in Hangzhou, capital of east China's Zhejiang Province, that the US and UK have invited China to join an international anti-cancer program called the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA).

Speaking at the ongoing 2006 International Conference on Genomics being held here Collins said, "We want China to join us just like it did when we cooperated on the international human genome project in 1999." The TCGA was launched two months ago in the US.
 
The program will focus on DNA variations in human cancers and attempt to find the causes of the disease. The initiative would help decipher the real pathogenic mechanisms of cancers at the genetic level, said Collins. He's one of TCGA's chief scientists.

Collins indicated the program would draw on funds of US$100 million and generate a substantial amount of work. 

"Studies of every sort of cancer need a minimum of several hundred samples so that the causes can be found through analysis," he explained. Those working on TCGA were very keen for China and India to be involved in the project, Collins said.

He and his colleagues have outlined a short-term program prioritizing work on cerebral, lung, and ovarian cancers. And Chinese scientists have reacted positively to the invitation from their western colleagues.

Coincidentally just a week ago China published a blueprint of its cancer genome studies on the Ministry of Science and Technology website, said Yang Huanming, director of the Huada Genetic Research Center, affiliated to the Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Yang, who was China's chief scientist on a 1999 international human genome project said, "China is keen to make TCGA, launched by the US and UK, an international cooperation program. China's blueprint has been accepted de facto as part of world cancer genome research."

By way of China's blueprint Yang and his partners will pursue certain research programs initiated by the US that have proved helpful to Chinese cancer sufferers.

Yang said they'll concentrate on studying tumors that have a high incidence in China and which have not so far been dealt with by US scientists.

Although the blueprint did not specify which sort of tumors China had decided to focus on Yang explained the targets would be serious, fast-growing and high-incidence tumors.

TCGA has not yet drawn up a clear-cut distribution of tasks for project participants. But Collins said there was confidence the project would be highly influential -- like its 1999 forerunner. "China will be one of the main participants," he said.

(Xinhua News Agency October 25, 2006)