Fox Chase starts Cancer Genome Institute

Imagine getting cancer treatment tailored to you like a custom suit. The researchers at Fox Chase say medical care should be specific to a person and the technology is here to do it.

Fox Chase Cancer Center has teamed up with genome researchers from Washington D.C. to launch a $100 million Cancer Genome Institute

The new center will provide personalized medicine and individualized treatment based on each person’s genetic profile.

Jeff Boyd with Fox Chase says gone are the days of blanket treatments that also poison healthy cells. He said, “No two ovarian cancers, no two breast cancers, no two colon cancers are completely alike with respect to there genetic architecture and so the idea is the field of cancer medicine is rapidly moving away from the sort of one-size-fits-all approach to cancer treatment.”

Boyd said it will be a few years before the high-end treatment is affordable for most of the public. But he adds when they are ready each patient who walks through the door will have traditional tests and “have a full cancer genome sequence and a full constitutional genome sequence that will be used in order to tailor therapy for that individual.”

Boyd says Fox Chase still needs to raise another $30 million for the institute before they can officially take off.  One floor of an existing building on Fox Chase’s Northeast Philadelphia campus will be dedicated to the work.