Home | Tumor Project

Welcome to the TUMOR website

The TUMOR project aims at developing a European clinically oriented semantic-layered cancer digital model repository from existing EU projects that will be interoperable with the US grid enabled semantic-layered digital model repository platform at CViT.org (Center for the Development of a Virtual Tumor, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Boston, USA) which is NIH/NCI-caGRID compatible.

This interoperable, CViT interfaced, environment will offer a range of services to international cancer modelers, bio-researchers and eventually clinicians aimed at supporting both basic cancer quantitative research and individualized optimization of cancer treatment.

This ‘Transatlantic’ project will therefore be the starting point for an international validation environment which will support joint applications, verification and validation of the clinical relevance of cancer models.

To ensure the clinical relevance of this joint effort, the development of the project will be based upon specific clinical scenarios that will be implemented within an integrated EU-US workflow environment prototype for predictive, In Silico Oncology-guided clinical studies that will be deployed towards the end of the project.

As an end result, a specific, clinically relevant workflow involving both EU and CViT models will be demonstrated, which will clearly highlight the need for and added value of interoperability.

To achieve these goals, multiscale models/tools developed and data collected within the framework of three ongoing EC funded research projects namely ACGT [Advancing Clinicogenomic Trials on Cancer], ContraCancrum [Clinically Oriented Cancer Multilevel Modeling] and the VPH NoE [Virtual Physiological Human Network of Excellence], in conjunction with models and data from the NIH supported ICBP Program CViT.org will drive the development, optimization and validation of the integrated system.

Thus, a new module of the VPH environment will emerge.

General information about the TUMOR project

Start date: April 1, 2010

End date: March 31, 2013

Duration (in months):36

Funding Schema: Collaborative Project (EC)

Concept and Objectives of the TUMOR project

Cancer is a highly complex and multi-scale disease. In order to better understand and subsequently treat the disease more effectively, a well orchestrated, global research cooperation is a sine qua non necessity.

So far, a significant effort has been made on both sides of the Atlantic to develop and use models of pathophysiology in order to better understand human function and promote individualized, i.e. patient-specific optimization of disease treatment.

The TUMOR project aims to link some of the most significant relevant EU VPH [Virtual Physiological Human]) projects on cancer modeling (i.e. ACGT [Advancing Clinicogenomic Trials on Cancer], ContraCancrum [Clinically Oriented Cancer Multilevel Modelling] and the US project CViT [Center for the Development of a Virtual Tumor]).

Models and data will drive advances in cancer modeling with the ultimate goal to build a strong bridge that will pave the way for an integrated, interoperable transatlantic research environment offering the best available models and tools for clinically oriented cancer modeling and serving as an international validation/ clinical translation platform for predictive, in silico oncology.

To achieve this ambitious goal, the TUMOR project has the following specific objectives:

To define/develop a European clinically oriented, semantic layered cancer multi-scale digital model/data repository from existing EU projects in order to minimize interoperability work with various EU project platforms thus saving resources and ensure that sensitive data issues are addressed altogether by the hospital provider.
To build-up interoperable interfaces between this repository and the US semantic-layered digital model repository CViT [Center for the Development of a Virtual Tumor] being NIH/NCI caGRID compatible
To develop and/or provide specific tools and methods for collection, curation, validation and customization of existing models and clinical data of EU projects and MGH-CViT DMR
To implement/demonstrate an integrated, interoperable transatlantic ‘predictive oncology’ workflow environment prototype (remote data access, application of tools/models, visualization of results in the ‘transatlantic’ context).
To address specific clinical questions/scenarios that will drive the development of all the above and demonstrate the added value of TUMOR in applying shared models/data in common, clinically relevant ‘transatlantic’ studies.

Consortium

The consortium consists of leading research entities in the international multi-level cancer modeling and related scenes. The outstanding level of the participating researchers, their complementary expertise and their proven efficiency of their past and on-going collaborations in the framework of several EU and US research projects can ensure that the consortium will optimally work as a whole for achieving the project’s goals. All these organizations bring together the diverse elements needed from the beginning, in order to reach the envisaged TUMOR project targets.

TUMOR has carefully selected five leading partners, four from EU research organizations and one from the US. These organizations, which have been chosen for their diverse experience and essential competencies, as well as for their complementarity, will closely work to ensure the successful outcome of the proposed project.

The TUMOR partners are the following:

	FORTH-ICS Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas, Institute of Computer Science FORTH will co-ordinate the project and act as the main contact between tha consortium, the EU and all involved participants. FORTH will constantly evaluate the progress of the project, report any significant problems and ensure that the project will successfully reach its goals. As a technical partner, FORTH will lead the design and implementation of the integrated, interoperable execution workflow environment that will demonstrate the ability to concatenate tasks and procedures from the participating VPH projects and the MGH-CViT DMR simulation models. In addition, FORTH will collaborate on the development and population of the EU cancer model/data repository for the TUMOR project by developing/ customizing models and image analysis tools.
	ICCS Institute of Communication and Computer Systems The In Silico Oncology Group (ISOG) of the Institute of Communication and Computer Systems (ICCS) - National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) leads the development of the EU cancer model/data repository from existing linked projects (mainly ACGT, ContraCancrum) as well as from new composite models that address the clinical questions/scenarios of cancer modeling in the EU-US collaboration context. It also proposes and partly implements in silico modelling scenarios to be deployed in the project and be supported by the interfaced EU-US TUMOR infrastructure. ISOG leads the integration process for the development of the TUMOR integrated simulator.
	USAAR Universität des Saarlandes The University of the Saarland (USAAR) will define guide and validate ‘transatlantic’ clinical scenarios all the way to the integration of TUMOR environment. USAAR assists the development of an integrated EU cancer model/data repository and give clinical insight to the dissemination and exploitation of the project’s results.
	UOXF The Chancellor, Masters and Scholars of the University of Oxford Oxford University (UOXF) will work on semantic interoperability issues for integrating the EU cancer model/data repository with MGH-CViT and in particular will harmonize model mark-up language adoption in TUMOR environment.
	MGH-CViT Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Center for the Development of a Virtual Tumor, CViT Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), together with InfoTech Soft Inc., will participate in the TUMOR interoperability efforts from the US side. This includes design, implementation and validation of relevant computational cancer modeling tools as well as development, testing and deployment of software infrastructure elements based on CViT's semantic-layered Digital Model Repository