Linghua Wang: NCI HTAN PreCancer Research Center grant to establish the Center for Gastric PreCancer Atlas

Linghua Wang, Associate Professor in the Department of Genomic Medicine at MD Anderson Cancer Center, shared a post on X:

“Proud to share that our multi-institutional team has been awarded a highly competitive NCI Human Tumor Atlas Network PreCancer Research Center grant to establish the Center for Gastric PreCancer Atlas of Multidimensional Evolution in 3D (GAME3D)!

Our team is investigating carriers of pathogenic germline mutations in the CDH1 gene, which significantly increase the risk of Hereditary Diffuse Gastric Cancer (HDGC). This specific type of gastric cancer is almost always fatal by the time symptoms appear.

Many patients with pathogenic CDH1 germline mutations choose to undergo preventive stomach removal at a young age, before cancer has a chance to develop, due to the poor survival rates associated with HDGC. However, this procedure can profoundly affect their quality of life.

With support from NCI Human Tumor Atlas Network, our team will build a multimodal, spatial, and 3D atlas of ‘normal-appearing’ but at-risk gastric mucosa, precancerous lesions, and early and advanced gastric cancers using longitudinal samples from cohorts of high-risk CDH1 mutation carriers.

Our team will utilize integrative single cell spatial omics, revolutionary non-disruptive 3D spatial technologies, innovative bioinformatics tools, and AI-driven approaches for 3D reconstruction, visualization, and predictive modeling.

We aim to uncover the biological mechanisms underlying the transition from at-risk gastric mucosa to precancerous lesions and advanced gastric cancers, and discover new classifiers for risk prediction, biomarkers for early detection, and targets for preventive strategies.

This project is co-led by Paul Mansfield at MD Anvderson Cancer Center, Mingyao Li at University of Pennsylvania, Tae Hyun Hwang at Mayo Clinic, with exciting collaborations from Sam C. Wang at UT SouthWestern Medical Center, Jeremy L. Davis, Nicholas Navin, Cassian Yee, Andy Futreal, Luisa Solis Soto, Rebecca Waters and Cara Haymaker.

Many thanks for the incredible support from Karen Colbert, our IAB members, including Jaffer Ajani, Anirban Maitra, Eduardo Vilar, Dr. Wistuba. We’re so grateful for our institutional support from Giulio Draetta, MD Anvderson Cancer Center, our EAB members Garry P. Nolan, Aaron Newman Lab, and Pei-Hsun Wu.

We are incredibly grateful for the support from NCI and NCI Human Tumor Atlas Network, which is allowing us to kick off this groundbreaking research. Together, we aim to drive new advances  in gastric cancer early detection and prevention.

We are extremely lucky to receive the first-ever Gastric Cancer U01 research grant funded by the NCI at MD Anvderson Cancer Center!

Even more incredible, it’s the largest and only gastric cancer U01 grant funded by NIH in over 20 years, excluding a few population-based studies

Congratulations again to the entire GAME3D team for this incredible achievement! Stay tuned for exciting future updates on our progress!”

Source: Linghua Wang/X