Introduction
Novel targeted therapies and immunotherapies are emerging that hold considerable promise for cancer patient treatments. Highly relevant pre-clinical animal models are essential to identify, refine and inform the most promising candidates to advance into human clinical trials. In many cases, canine cancer closely mimics the human condition in pathology, molecular features, biological behavior, host immunocompetence, and treatment response.
Methods
The NCI’s Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis (DCTD) has launched the Integrated Canine Data Commons (ICDC) to make data from studies of spontaneously-arising cancer in pet dogs accessible for analysis, enabling hypothesis-driven comparative analysis of canine and human data.
Results
In recognizing the importance of a comparative oncology research approach, DCTD has launched initiatives to expand the value, use, and impact of spontaneously-arising cancers in pet dogs including: (1) Cancer Center Support Grant (P30) supplements to sequence canine cancers including some that affect children (glioma, lymphoma, osteosarcoma) and (2) UO1/U24 awards to study immunotherapies in canine cancer clinical trials. Data currently in the ICDC include: a small molecule clinical trial in dogs with lymphoma, a transcriptomic study of multiple tumor types, and a genomic study of glioma.
Conclusion
ICDC anticipates adding pathology and imaging data and, as part of the NCI Cancer Research Data Commons, will enable veterinary oncology researchers to access and analyze data from other repositories, such as the Genomic Data Commons (GDC), to further relate their findings to those of humans. ICDC was publicly announced on National Dog Day, August 26, 2020. Projects are now being accepted at https://caninecommons.cancer.gov.
Funding Information
Funded by NCI Contract No. HHSN261201500003I
Matthew Beyers, Philip Musk, Mark Jensen, Amit Mukherjee, John Otridge, Ralph Parchment, Biomedical Informatics and Data Science Directorate, Leidos Biomedical Research, Inc., Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, Frederick, Maryland 21702