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World's Largest Childhood Cancer Research Organization Looks to CMM for Professional Services in Finding Genetic Markers That May Improve Treatment
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., Jan. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- The Center for Molecular Medicine (CMM) today announced it has been selected by the Children's Oncology Group (COG) to provide professional genotyping services and analysis as part of a study to evaluate the existence of genetic abnormalities and their association with response to therapy and/or specific toxicities to improve the diagnosis and treatment of childhood leukemia.
In Phase I of the study, the CMM has been asked to provide extensive testing and review of up to 2,200 matched samples of DNA from pediatric leukemia patients' germline blood samples and their leukemic blasts. The CMM will identify and catalog potentially critical differences it finds across these DNA samples for analysis and subsequent use by COG.
Once these genetic differences are identified, COG researchers will have information that can be adapted to improve diagnostic testing and zero in on methods to evaluate personalized therapeutics. According to the COG, acute lymphoblastic leukemia is the most common form of cancer in children, with 3,000 new cases diagnosed in the United States each year.
Grand Rapids, Mich.-based CMM (http://www.cmmdx.org) is a CLIA-certified, CAP- accredited, state-of-the-art clinical diagnostics laboratory, founded early in 2007. The CMM's unique technological capabilities, which include high-volume robotic DNA extraction, microarray-based DNA typing and gene expression profiling, all played a vital role in securing the COG project.
"We are very pleased and proud that a world-class organization such as
the Children's Oncology Group would select the Center for Molecular
Medicine for this important work," said Matt VanVranken, Executive Vice
President, Spectrum Health System/President of Sp
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