The atlas of nervous system tumors project was led by the University of Louisville assistant professor and neurosurgeon Dr. Akshitkumar Mistry. LPM News' Bill Burton sat down to talk with Akshithumar about the database and its goals.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Bill Burton: The database is officially called the atlas of nervous system tumors. How did this come together?
Akshitkumar Mistry: We came together because there is a need. The need is really urgent, at least in the state of Kentucky. Primarily because Kentucky is one of those states that has one of the highest incidences of brain tumors. If you look at all the organs in your body, brain is the organ that produces the largest amount of cancers. In fact, there are over 50 plus cancers. They're rare, but the breadth is enormous.
And so what this is, is the first atlas that we know of in the world that measures the gene expression in over 7,000 brain tumors, really comprehensive, and makes an atlas such that scientists, clinicians, people interested in brain tumors can play with the data and identify patterns so that they can speed up therapy development.
BB: And that's why it took place here at the U of L and Kentucky, because this is where the need was most pressing?
AM: Well, the reason it took place here, a lot of the funding came from the state. I had this idea a while ago, it just didn't materialize or accelerate, if you will, until we got the funding. And then the state of Kentucky, you know, recognized the need, recognized the value.
BB: And how does this benefit research? How does this speed up the process?
AK: Some of these cancers are really rare, and so if you have data from a rare cancer, and let's say that you have you know four or five, well, that data is important. It's just not large enough for you to decipher patterns. Now, if you have an atlas for that rare tumor, the number, if you will, goes from four to five to 40, it becomes very easy for clinicians and scientists to start exploring and really looking at patterns.
BB: So what kind of feedback have you had so far? It's only been less than a month since this was officially announced. But what are you hearing from other neurosurgeons around the country and researchers?
AM: You know, one of the things that I'm hearing is I am getting invitations for collaborations. Oftentimes, other scientists not only want to explore the data, but they have a question specifically that can only be answered with sort of the raw data, if you will. And so we've had a couple of institutions, you know, one from Texas, I believe, another one from California, to reach out to us, or me, and kind of say, look, we see the value. We are interested in this specific tumor. And either, you know, give us some more data, help us understand a little bit about the data, or give us, you know, would you be able to share the raw data so that we can answer one specific question?
BB: Do you see this atlas now that it has been completed as something that can be used as a template, if you will, for compiling databases for other tumors or diseases?
AM: Absolutely, yeah. I'm biased, you know, so I treat brain tumors. I think they're the most interesting and the most challenging. And so we created this atlas. But the methods, if you will, that go behind creating this atlas, we also made those public such that if there are a group of scientists, clinicians that have an interest in even rarer cancers, and they want to generate an atlas that can increase the number of tumors, so that you can start to see those patterns emerge, that they can use our technology or our method.
