Expansion of the pediatric brain tumor atlas: an open science effort of children's brain tumor network, kids first data resource and childhood cancer data initiative

Abstract Pediatric central nervous system cancers are the leading disease-related cause of death in children and there is urgent need for curative therapeutic strategies for these tumors. To address the urgency, Children’s Brain Tumor Network (CBTN) has advanced an open science model to accelerate the research discovery for pediatric brain tumors. In first phase of Open Pediatric Brain Tumor Atlas (OpenPBTA) effort CBTN together with Pacific Pediatric Neuro-Oncology Consortium (PNOC) and Gabriella Miller Kids First Data Resource Center (KFDRC) created and characterized over 1000 clinically annotated pediatric brain tumors. The second phase of the OpenPBTA, through resource awards and collaboration across KFDRC, the NCI Childhood Cancer Data Initiative (CCDI), Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium (CPTAC), Center for Cancer Research and partnered institutions and foundations has expanded molecular characterization for an additional 1900 pediatric brain tumor patients and their families. This includes the processing and characterization of >8000 specimens across >50 brain tumor diagnoses. This expansion builds off multimodal data including whole genome, RNA, miRNA and methylation sequencing, proteomics, lipidomics and/or metabolomics. Molecular data is linked to longitudinal clinical data, imaging data, histology images, and pathology reports. The data deposition in the cloud-based environment of the NCI’s CCDI and KFDRC to provide near real-time integration, dissemination, processing, and sharing capability. The approach leverages the DRC platform’s cloud-based computational environment through CAVATICA portal shareable pipelines. Data can be explored via PedcBioPortal, a data visualization/analysis application integrating additional public and deposited datasets. This OpenPBTA expansion released with no embargo provides one of the largest deeply characterized cohorts of samples and associated clinical data for >3000 pediatric brain tumor patients. CBTN’s open-science, rapid-release model aims to accelerate pediatric biomarker and drug discovery research and supports clinical trial development on behalf of changing the outcome for kids with brain tumors.