An innovative approach to shared genomic research resources appeared as Zhao et al. earlier this month in JAMA Oncology (here). The authors took the concepts of luminal and basal gene expression or differentiation - as long used in breast cancer - and applied it to prostate cancer, with significant results. (These panel-based classifications may prove clinically impactful for prognosis-dependent management and in predicting responsiveness to androgen deprivation drugs.)
However, a very interesting aspect is how they did it: with large gene-chip archives of data developed by San Diego's commercial firm GenomeDx through the DecipherGRID program.
GenomeDx has commercialized a prognostic prostate cancer test which has Medicare coverage. In addition, GenomeDX uses a methodology which has also archived genomic data on 46,000 coding and non coding genes through array technology - the DecipherGRID program (homepage here.) Researcher can collaboratively test hypotheses on the data - and many dozens of publications have already appeared.
Additional coverage of the Zhao et al. paper at Genomeweb here., and Genomeweb coverage on the DecipherGRID program here.
DecipherGRID data archives have also contributed to a major article on prostate cancer radiation sensitivity (research in Lancet Oncology here, press here.)
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For an article on coverage issues for prostate gene panel tests, see Managed Care, May 2017, here. For example, a couple years after launch, the Myriad Prolaris test conducted for prognostic classification on biopsy tissue received relatively narrow coverage from Medicare MolDx (October, 2014; here); which was expanded considerably over 18 months later (May 2017; here).
