Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan Institute for Personalized Cancer Therapy

The institute sits at the interface between discovery genomics, clinical testing and biomarker-driven clinical trials.  We achieve our work through the integration of four key components:

• Technology and Target Development: We ensure that the technologies needed to best identify and understand the genetic alterations driving tumorigenesis, treatment response and resistance, and prognosis are available to clinicians and patients at MD Anderson.
• Biomarker-Driven Clinical Trials and Decision Support: Through the All CLIA Data, Clearinghouse and Unusual Responders protocols and the Kleberg Center for Molecular Markers, the institute supports the capacity for clinicians to have access to and interpret genomic data from CLIA-approved molecular testing and research sequencing for use in identifying patients for appropriate biomarker-driven and biomarker-enriched trials.
  
• Communication and Education: Strategic communication and training through the Khalifa Fellows and Scholars program, our support of specific conferences and workshops, and our Decision Support team aim to ensure the MD Anderson community as well as the more general cancer care community has access to appropriate resources and tools they need to understand how to integrate genomic information into patient care.
  
• Data Analysis and Data Sharing: By leveraging collaborations across the institution, including colleagues in Genomic Medicine, Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, Research Information Systems and expertise within each of the clinical departments, the institute ensures data from the clinical testing, research testing and technology development components are shared with the rest of the institution.

Aims

The MD Anderson Cancer Center Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan Institute for Personalized Cancer Therapy will provide personalized cancer therapy for all of our patients and define the new standard of patient care by improving outcomes and reducing costs. We will be the leader in implementing personalized cancer therapy, based on an analysis of each patient's cancer that will integrate information across DNA, RNA, proteins and metabolomics in the context of the tumor microenvironment, the patient's immune system and the patient's own genotype.

We will provide assays and tools that enable clinical investigators to genetically and molecularly interrogate a patient's tumor, in order to facilitate assignment of experimental or approved therapies most likely to benefit the patient. The specific goals of the institute are:

1. Support genomic testing in the Molecular Diagnostic Laboratory and create infrastructure and platforms for integration of genetic analysis and clinical data for cancer patient biospecimens
2. Support development and recruitment of clinical trials which bring therapies to patients that target the genetic aberrations in their cancers
3. Promote research ito the mechanisms of response and resistance to targeted therapies
4. Provide decision support to create personalized cancer treatment plans at point of care
5. Demonstrate the value of this approach so that it will become standard of practice and reimbursed
6. Educate current and the next generation of clinical investigators, here and outside of the institution