About TARGET Data

TARGET aims to identify therapeutic targets in childhood cancers, particularly those at high-risk for relapse, so that more effective treatments can be rapidly developed. Five common types of childhood malignancies are currently under study, including acute lymphoblastic and myeloid leukemias (ALL and AML), neuroblastoma, osteosarcoma, and Wilms tumor. Read about these cancer types here.

TARGET uses various genomics methods to analyze tumor and matched normal samples, as well as relapse samples when available, obtained from patients enrolled in various Children's Oncology Group clinical or biology trials. Chip-based molecular characterization methods, including gene expression and copy number analyses, are employed to compliment whole genome and/or exome sequencing completed on each TARGET case. Additionally, some TARGET researchers utilize transcriptomic, epigenomic, miRNA and/or targeted Sanger sequencing technologies to further identify and validate the underlying molecular changes in their pediatric cancers of study. To learn more about the types of data in the TARGET Data Portal, click here.

The various types of data generated from these studies, including clinical information, genome-scale characterization and sequencing data, as well as metadata, are available through the TARGET Data Matrix, which is coordinated and maintained by the TARGET Data Coordinating Center (DCC) at the NCI's Center for Bioinformatics and Information Technology. The DCC ensures:

Central storage area for data generated for all OCG projects
Definition of the data types available
Uniformity of data files
Inclusion of metadata
Quality control of data files
Version control and a version index to provide accurate history of changes
Connection between the data and various analytical tools

To learn more about the different tiers of data access, click here.

To learn more about the TARGET Initiative, click here.