Democratizing genetic data for cancer research

By | November 20, 2020
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(M Health Lab/Stephanie King)

By distilling information from hundreds of data sources, U-M Precision Health researchers have launched an open-access, online repository called Cancer PRSWeb that will help accelerate advancements in cancer prevention and prediction.

The researchers created polygenic risk scores (PRS) for 35 cancer traits and then evaluated the scores using electronic health record data from the Michigan Genomics Initiative and the UK Biobank. “We hope this platform will be useful to the cancer research community worldwide,” says lead author Lars Fritsche, an associate research scientist in biostatistics in the School of Public Health and the recipient of a 2018 Precision Health Investigators Award for this research.