The Cancer Research Institute, in collaboration with 10x Genomics (NASDAQ: TXG), Stanford University School of Medicine, the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, launches open immunotherapy research database designed to finally answer how the immune system responds to specific interventions over time by targeting the reproducibility crisis and data gap that have slowed progress for decades.
The Cancer Research Institute (CRI) today launched the CRI Discovery Engine, a first-of-its-kind foundational database for cancer immunotherapy.
By systemically capturing the molecular response of both immune cells and cancer cells to immunotherapy, the CRI Discovery Engine will overcome two of the biggest hurdles in cancer research: the research reproducibility crisis, where the results of fewer than half of high-impact studies can be replicated, and a data gap where just 1% of cancer research is truly accessible to other scientists. The goal of the new immunotherapy research database is simple: to get more researchers working with the same high-resolution spatial and temporal data, in an AI-ready format, to accelerate the pathway to new and more impactful treatments.
The CRI Discovery Engine is a collaboration between CRI, Stanford University School of Medicine, the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, with technology support from 10x Genomics.
The initiative is led by three principal investigators: CRI STARs Andrea Schietinger, Ph.D., and Ansuman Satpathy, M.D., Ph.D., and CRI Scientific Advisory Council Associate Director, E. John Wherry, Ph.D.
Alicia Zhou, Ph.D., CEO of CRI, said:
“The goal of the CRI Discovery Engine really is to accelerate discovery in the immunotherapy space. With immunotherapy, we are dealing with a ‘living therapy’ – so the key is to capture the right cells, at the right time, in three-dimensional space. With the current advances in spatial sequencing technology, partnering with 10x Genomics, we are finally able to see the resolution of single cells in real time. We can capture immune cells interacting with cancer cells at the exact moment when we perturb that system. This will be the key to unlocking novel immunotherapy combinations for cancer treatment.”
Most critical immunotherapy research data today remains locked away – siloed in institutions, held as proprietary information, or buried in inaccessible repositories. The result is that researchers waste years and millions of dollars trying to reproduce protocols that work in one lab but fail in another.
Fewer than half of high-impact cancer studies can be reproduced, and NIH research shows just 16% of oncology data is publicly available – a number that drops to 1% when checked for standards that allow other researchers to actually use it.
The Discovery Engine changes that.
CRI will seed the database with its own initial research and outside scientists will be able to add their findings over time, creating a living resource that continually grows more valuable. All data will be standardized to ensure consistent results and optimized for AI, with one goal in mind: accelerating the path from lab to life-saving treatment.
The initial phase focuses on melanoma and colorectal cancer – two cancer types where immunotherapies have transformed patient care, but significant gaps remain. Critically, it includes data on treatments that failed, information that researchers have historically been reluctant to share, but that is essential for understanding what doesn’t work and why.
Dr. Wherry said:
“One of the biggest challenges in academic research is that we work in silos. There’s competition and proprietary knowledge that institutions feel they need to protect. But that approach slows everyone down. This collaboration represents a commitment to breaking down those barriers because we all share the same goal: getting better treatments to patients faster.”
Taken together, that commitment is what makes the CRI Discovery Engine unprecedented. While shared data resources exist in other areas of oncology, none have been purpose-built for immunotherapy at this scale or depth. Instead of isolated datasets or one-off experiments, the Discovery Engine establishes a shared foundation for studying immunotherapy as a dynamic system – capturing how the immune response evolves over time and enabling the field to ask questions that were previously impossible to answer.
Dr. Satpathy said:
“Someday we’ll look back on this as a turning point for immunotherapy. By building a shared, high-resolution understanding of how the human immune system responds to interventions over time, we’re unlocking a new era of discovery – one that shows us why treatments work, why they fail, and how to design what comes next.”
The database is built with standardized protocols that ensure results can be reliably reproduced no matter who runs the experiment, addressing the persistent problem of approaches that succeed in one lab but fail in another. It is also optimized for AI and machine learning, providing researchers with large, consistent datasets that allow them to identify patterns, generate insights, and jumpstart years of work rather than starting from scratch.
Serge Saxonov, Ph.D., CEO and co-founder of 10x Genomics, said:
“Consistent control, consistent robustness is critical for creating a foundation for accelerating our understanding. Technology has advanced tremendously over the past few years. We are now in a position to generate really powerful datasets to measure the right biology.”
The initial dataset will be made publicly available by the end of its first year.
Dr. Zhou said:
“The challenges facing cancer research right now are real. Federal funding is under threat and public trust in science is deteriorating. This database represents what we can accomplish when we stop working in isolation and start working together with the urgency this moment in history demands. Cancer doesn’t care about institutional egos, proprietary data, or who gets credit. Neither do we.”
About the Cancer Research Institute
Founded in 1953, the Cancer Research Institute is the world’s leading nonprofit organization dedicated exclusively to fueling the discovery and development of immunotherapies for all cancers.
You can read more posts featuring Cancer Research Institute on OncoDaily.