Clinicopathology and molecular biology of cancer research between races have been limited due to poor representation in findings from persons of African Ancestry. This is evident in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) as there are insufficient numbers of Black patients represented to reasonably identify common genetic alterations related to cancer development and outcome.
Prostate cancer (PCa) disproportionately affects individuals of African ancestry more than their White and Asian counterparts and is the number one cause of cancer deaths among all men of African Ancestry worldwide. US Black women have a higher incidence of breast cancer (BCa) than US White women, and BCa is the leading diagnosed cancer in the Caribbean and Sub-Saharan regions.
The African Cancer Genome Project (ACGR) project will recruit men with prostate cancer (PCa) and women with BCa with the aim of expanding existing resources to promote health equity through genetics/genomics, molecular epidemiology, and behavioural research. The study will be led by the African Caribbean Cancer Consortium (AC3) in collaboration with the Fox Chase Cancer Centre (FCCC) and University of Miami (UM) in addition to the 12 satellite sites of which Jamaica is a part.
Team members are Drs. Simone Badal, Rory Thompson, Belinda Morrison, Sheray Ward-Chin, Derria Cornwall, and Profs. William Aiken and Gillian Wharfe and Mrs Natalie Guthrie-Dixon.