INCa's Commitments

In the initial phase, France's participation involves hepatocellular carcinoma and HER2+ breast cancer.
In December 2007, INCa began calling on the French scientific community by organising an international conference on "Cancer genomics and epigenomics: new technologies for new challenges" and every year, INCa also holds a workshop on this theme at ICACT (see workshop 2009 and workshop 2010).

In April 2008, INCa launched a call for proposals entitled "Genomics and the function of genes in cancers:  an evaluation of biological resources", funded with €5 million.

At the same time, in partnership with the Directorate for Hospitalisation and Organisation of Care (DHOS) within the Ministry of Health, INCa is active in organising a national tumour bank network.

In 2009, 14 liver tumours (alcohol-related hepatocellular carcinoma) were selected and sequencing was performed on the entire genome of 7 healthy tumour/tissue pairs. The chromosome rearrangements and the mutations are currently being analysed.

For breast cancer, 4 comprehensive cancer centres and the CNG (Centre National de Génotypage) have been involved in tumour acquisition and selection since 2008. 5 other centres are expected to join the network shortly. Over 330 samples were analysed and 20 HER2+ tumours were pre-selected. The DNA and RNA characterisation process is currently underway, after which the project will proceed with sequencing.

French participation in ICGC may be expanded to include other tumours.