Groundbreaking research led by scientists at Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU) into identifying the aggressiveness of brain tumours has been published by Cell, a leading scientific journal in the US and one of the top 20 most highly ranked scientific journals globally.
Michele Ceccarelli, a senior scientist at Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI) is the lead author of the scientific paper by an international taskforce of scientists. The paper offers a comprehensive analysis of the molecular characteristics of gliomas, the most common type of malignant brain tumour, and suggests ways to more accurately treat patients.
The paper explains why some patients, diagnosed with slow-growing tumours sometimes quickly succumb to the disease, while others with more aggressive tumours are able to survive for several years. The paper has suggested a new way of classifying the tumours which could significantly impact on patient management and may lead to the development of new targeted drug therapies based on the identification of several previously unrecognised genetic alterations that may contribute to initial glioma development.
Currently, pathologists determine if a tumour is low grade or high grade based on investigation under the microscope of tissue taken from the tumour. By sifting through large amounts of data, the new investigation discovered that while this approach is generally good at distinguishing between tumours that are clearly very aggressive and those that are relatively slow growing, it misses the mark in a significant percentage of cases, leading to inappropriate treatment.
Ceccarelli worked closely with a large team of scientists from a number of major institutions around the world, including Columbia University Medical Centre in New York, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Centre, and the University of S?o Paulo in Brazil. The scientists analysed the complete genomic information of 1,122 patients with both high and low grade tumours from the Cancer Genome Atlas.
“This project is an example of the advantage of Big Data. The Cancer Genome Atlas mega-project was started a decade ago and has involved collecting a huge amount of information from thousands of patients with several types of tumours. For this discovery, we worked with a large network of more than 300 scientists from around the world,” Ceccarelli explained.
“We used our expertise at QCRI to analyse the millions of pieces of information that formed a ‘data tsunami’ to identify common characteristics of various groups of gliomas. Notably, it is the largest available collection of information on glioma worldwide, and as a result of our analysis, we discovered two novel subgroups of patients that were previously unknown.”
The project also involved the contribution of Samreen Anjum, who served as a QCRI intern at the time of the study and has since become a full-time member of the research team.
Dr Ahmed Elmagarmid, executive director of QCRI, said: “This is a proud achievement, as it demonstrates how the computing research work of our team can have a significant impact on society. The journal Cell is extremely well regarded, so to be lead author and an important contributor to a paper featured in the publication is a resounding endorsement of Michele’s and Samreen’s talents.”