©
Adobe Stock
The PRECISE consortium (Predictive Relationships Explaining Cancer Genetic Interactions and Synthetic Essentiality) brings together more than 30 experimental and computational research groups from over 20 institutes and universities across nine European countries. The consortium's vision is outlined in a Nature Genetics commentary, marking the formal launch of the collaboration.
At the MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, Dr Sumana Sharma is among the researchers contributing to the consortium. PRECISE will combine functional genomics, multimodal molecular profiling and artificial intelligence to build predictive models that explain why cancers become dependent on particular genes or pathways and identify new therapeutic opportunities in previously untested settings.
Speaking about the consortium, Sumana said:
This is an exciting time for cancer vulnerability prediction. We are moving beyond simple growth-based assessments towards a deeper understanding of context-specific dependencies that drive tumour biology. International collaborations such as the PRECISE consortium are essential for accelerating this shift, enabling us to identify and target cancer vulnerabilities from the outset through the integration of expertise, data, and technologies across Europe.
Unlike existing cancer dependency maps, which largely describe vulnerabilities that have already been observed, PRECISE will use an iterative prediction-validation approach. Computational models will guide laboratory experiments, with the resulting data feeding back into improved predictions. The long-term goal is to develop generalisable rules that can anticipate cancer vulnerabilities across different tumour types and biological contexts, ultimately helping to expand precision oncology to patients whose cancers currently lack actionable treatment options.
The PRECISE consortium is also committed to open science. The consortium promotes common experimental standards, interoperable analytical pipelines, and FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) data principles to ensure that datasets and computational tools can be shared, integrated, and reused across the international research community.
Further information about the consortium, its principles and its goals is available on the PRECISE web portal.