TCGA Wins 2015 Sammies People’s Choice Award
, by NCI Staff
The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), co-sponsored by NCI and the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), was honored with the People’s Choice Award at the 2015 Partnership for Public Service Sammies gala on October 7.
This is the first year for the People’s Choice Award, which was presented to Jean-Claude Zenklusen, Ph.D., director of NCI’s TCGA program office, and Carolyn Hutter, Ph.D., the NHGRI team lead for TCGA, who together represented the government staff and researchers who have worked on TCGA over the past decade.
Jean-Claude Zenklusen, Ph.D., and Carolyn Hutter, Ph.D., accepted the 2015 Sammies People’s Choice Award on behalf of the government staff and researchers who have worked on The Cancer Genome Atlas.
All 30 Sammies finalists were eligible for the People’s Choice award. The winner was selected based on the results of public polling conducted via social media.
Initially launched as a pilot program in 2006, TCGA was the first comprehensive effort to create a detailed catalogue of the genomic changes found in more than 30 types of tumors—the largest collection of tumor samples ever to be analyzed for key genomic and molecular characteristics.
In a blog post on the Sammies awards given to NCI’s Steven Rosenberg, M.D., and TCGA, NIH Director Francis Collins, M.D., wrote that TCGA’s “groundbreaking efforts already have delivered greater precision in classifying and treating many cancers.”
Results from TCGA analyses to date have led to more than 2,700 articles in research journals. Primary findings from more than half of the tumor types covered by TCGA have been published, with results from the comprehensive analyses of the remaining tumor types still forthcoming.