Project Leader: Prof. D. Bowtell.
Peter Mac Laboratory Head: Prof. D. Bowtell.
The Peter Mac is the lead agency for the largest systematic, population-based molecular genetic study of ovarian cancer in the world. Funded by a special US Department of Defense (DOD) Program grant, the Australian Ovarian Cancer Study is expected to create the largest linked epidemiological, clinical and genomic dataset for ovarian cancer to date. Over the next 12 months, approximately 500 ovarian cancer samples, with detailed clinical information, will be analysed on complex microarrays. The goal of the study is several-fold and includes identification of predictors of response to first-line treatment, markers of biological aggressiveness of tumours, surrogate biomarkers of germline mutation status and identification of key pathways regulating cell growth.
NICTA’s role will be facilitate the development of classification tools and predictors of outcome. Access to such a large dataset will provide a test-bed for the development of tools that can deal with complex expression datasets and search for high-order structure in the expression data.