NCI is formulating a plan to develop an innovative childhood cancer initiative focused on data sharing. The plan would be initiated with a proposed increase to NCI’s budget of $50 million beginning in fiscal year 2020 and continuing, as proposed by the White House, for a total of 10 years.
“At NCI, we strongly believe that harnessing the power of data can be a driver of that progress, which is why the institute plans to use these proposed funds to create the Childhood Cancer Data Initiative,” Douglas R. Lowy, acting director at NCI, said in a statement.
“The aim of the CCDI is to establish more efficient ways to share and use childhood cancer data to help identify novel therapeutic targets and approaches, underpin new drug development, and enable new research pursuits to better understand the biology of childhood cancers.”
To shape the scientific direction of the CCDI, NCI is hosting a planning symposium July 29–31 in Washington, DC. The symposium will gather leaders and stakeholders from academic, government, industry, and advocacy communities to discuss scientific and clinical research data needs, opportunities for developing a connected data infrastructure, ways to provide meaningful datasets for clinical care and associated research progress, and policies around collecting and sharing data.
Deadline for submitting an abstract is June 15.
Consideration will be given for abstracts submitted up until June 30 if space is still available, NCI officials said.
