Translational cancer research comes of age in Latin America.

Abstract

Ambitious efforts to characterize the genomics of cancer, made by initiatives such as the Cancer Genome Atlas and the Global Cancer Genomics Consortium, have highlighted the disease’s complexity and exposed how far we are from understanding the intrinsic molecular mechanisms that govern cancer outcome and response to therapy. Many of these cost-intensive studies used cutting-edge genomic technologies and were performed in developed countries with the support of national and regional agencies. Since then, investigators have delved more deeply into the ef ects of race and ethnic origin, and their intrinsic human genetic variation, on cancer susceptibility, prognosis, and response to therapy. Thus, cancer’s complexity has created a challenge that encouraged concerted international efforts to improve the capacity for excellence in translational medicine research in developing countries. This unmet need spurred the Center for Global Health of the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) to create the U.S.–Latin America Cancer Research Network (LACRN), with the aim of strengthening collaborative research efforts among the participating countries, advancing translational cancer research, and reducing the global cancer burden. Here, we describe the implementation of the network’s first translational study on breast cancer genomics.