Recently launched in San Diego, CA, Human Longevity Inc. will collaborate with scientists at the nearby Moores Cancer Center on a large-scale project to analyze patients' tumor and germline genomes, metabolome, and microbiome.

Genomics trailblazer J. Craig Venter, PhD, recently launched a new company with the aim of scanning at least 40,000 genomes per year, to speed progress against diseases of aging.

Venter's San Diego-based Human Longevity Inc. has already raised $70 million from investors, and will collaborate with the University of California, San Diego, starting with scientists at its Moores Cancer Center.

Every Moores patient will soon be eligible to participate in a large-scale genome project. Along with a patient's tumor and germline genomes, researchers will analyze each individual's metabolomic data and the genetic makeup of their microbiome.

The combined information and the massive scale of the research effort should allow insights never before possible, says Scott Lippman, MD, director of the Moores Cancer Center and the project's principal investigator.

“We're excited about the opportunity it will give us to discover new genetic drivers and new altered signaling pathways, and we hope that we'll be able to translate this extensive research into clinically meaningful discoveries,” he says.

Co-principal investigator Razelle Kurzrock, MD, who directs the Moores' Center for Personalized Cancer Therapy and Clinical Trials Office and serves as vice chief of its division of Hematology and Oncology, says she sees this venture as part of the “extreme acceleration” under way in basic cancer research. “It's really exciting to think we will be able to analyze this research information and bring it to patients, I hope, very quickly.”

Kurzrock says she expects the information on the metabolome and microbiome will be illuminating both on its own and in connection with the other data. “I think there's a lot of potential there for understanding both the disease and also absorption of drugs, toxicities, and so forth,” she explains.

Although the basic research will start almost immediately, Lippman says the clinical research will take a few months to begin, as scientists, administrators, and ethicists work out the more challenging aspects of the collaboration. There have been meetings “24/7,” Lippman says, to resolve concerns about patient consent and privacy, as well as the sharing of data with a private company. Human Longevity Inc. intends to market its knowledge base to make new diagnostics and therapeutics for patients with cancer and those who are at risk for developing it.

“A big part of this research is going to be looking into these ethical, privacy, psychosocial, consent issues that are also very important research questions for the field,” Lippman notes. “Everyone in the field is dealing with these and there's no boilerplate or recipe in this area.”