DoD Cancer Moonshot Program - DoD Framingham Longitudinal Study
Abstract
DoD Framingham is a novel project that is enabled by the blood serum specimens stored at the DoD Serum Repository (DoDSR) at the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Branch (AFHSB) in Silver Spring, Maryland. This facility stores blood serum drawn from over 10 million ADSMs who were required to undergo mandatory semiannual blood testing for the last 25 years, resulting in this repository with over 65 million blood serum specimens. MCC tumor registry data, which includes every ADSM who developed cancer while on active duty, is matched to data in the Serum Repository. This allows MCC to identify the blood serum of ADSMs who ultimately develop cancer at key times, i.e., before they had cancer, during their cancer treatment, and after their successful cancer treatment. Four different serum specimens (two before, one during, and one after cancer diagnosis and treatment) from every ADSM who developed certain types of cancer over a ten-year period of time are then sent to the Nation’s foremost protein identification (mass spectroscopy) center, i.e., the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) run by the Department of Energy (DOE). This enables identification of the entire proteome circulating in the blood serum of these cancer patients before, during, and after cancer diagnosis. Comparing the proteomes will allow for identification of new protein biomarkers and indicators of treatment response and failure both of individual patients and across all patients with a specific type of cancer. Smaller studies of this nature done by MCC researchers have proven that this is an effective strategy to identify novel diagnostic and treatment protein expression biomarkers that can be assayed in new blood tests for cancer. This project will do it “at scale”, i.e. in large numbers of active duty cancer patients (who are otherwise healthy and therefore do not have the “confounding” protein markers of old age, diabetes, and other medical issues). By using serums that go back many years before the ADSM was diagnosed with cancer, the earliest markers of cancer that will be identified, and assays will be performed by another U.S. governmental agency with the best protein detection and analysis tools in the world. Eight specific DoD Framingham sub-projects, classified based on the organ type of cancer, will be conducted: Framingham 1 = Oropharyngeal cancer; Framingham 2 = Lymphoma; Framingham 3 = Melanoma; Framingham 4 = Pancreatic cancer; Framingham 5 = Metastatic Cancer to Bone (of any type); and Framinghams 6 through 8 subtypes will be determined by MCC and NCI experts in the coming months.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Accomplishment
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2024
- Source ID
- f72146b7688aacf8df3601060b933f6d