Development of prioritization strategies for the Cancer Data Focus Group

In the field of cancer there are many challenges, e.g., tumor heterogeneity; investigation of new enzymes; the fight against
contamination; tumor evolution; cancer progression; harmonization of data from electronic health records. The objective of
this Focus Group is to discuss the common bioinformatics needs that Use Cases of working within the cancer field pose to
the ELIXIR Nodes.
A core activity in scope for this Focus Group is to present “Gold Standard” examples from ELIXIR Nodes (eg. research
institutes, hospitals & clinics) in working with cancer related data in order to highlight the opportunities arising from data,
tools and platform interoperability, and to promote the added value from unobstructed data sharing of cancer data for
biomedical research and applications.
The ELIXIR Cancer Data Focus Group, co-chaired by Macha Nikolski (ELIXIR-FR), Fatima Al-Shahrour (ELIXIR-ES) and Eivind
Hovig (ELIXIR-NO) was initiated in 2021, in order to capture the emerging need of devising strategies for infrastructure for
handling cancer data, drawing from the expertise across the network.
A major effort of the focus group has been to develop a white paper to define important elements of the required
infrastructure, and to obtain a consensus for the contents. This was achieved throughout a process of discussion and revision
to iterate towards the consensus that has been reached, and is now to be published.
Main purpose of this project is to establish a strategic roadmap for the Cancer Data Focus Group, aiming for the definition of
a process towards determining the critical elements and their interplay in cancer data management, involving ELIXIR and
relevant stakeholders (GA4GH, 1m+G, EATRIS) and other academic networks (ISCB, ECCB, EACR, CancerCore Europe) and
health care institution researchers. Direct outcome of this collaboration will be the successful publication of the strategic
road map as an Open Access comment article aiming for Nature Reviews Cancer/Nature Cancer, a clear and high-impact
milestone of the efforts done across Nodes and communities within the ELIXIR Focus Group. This effort will be done with
continuous sharing among team members and in close collaboration with the ELIXIR Hub.