Promoting Precision Cancer Medicine through a Community-Driven Knowledgebase

Abstract

Increasing efforts are being dedicated towards improving cancer care via personalized medicine. These efforts depend to a large degree on the availability of a knowledge foundation. Unfortunately, existing knowledge linking cancer drugs and potential efficacy biomarkers is in its infancy; and where links are known, they are frequently unstructured and poorly documented. We have developed a new open-access knowledgebase for precision cancer medicine (the PCM Wiki and Knowledgebase). This knowledgebase was constructed using an innovative, two-pronged approach involving a structured knowledgebase at the back-end, and an intuitive knowledge-sharing interface and user-friendly query engine in front. The knowledgebase was seeded with several patient case reports and information was mined via text-mining and literature review by human curators. Using our novel Wiki-based platform to present and share knowledge stored in the PCM knowledgebase, users are able to suggest corrections, propose additions or point to errors in the knowledgebase. The result is a community-driven evolving knowledgebase holding integrated and consolidated knowledge of markers and indications for personalized cancer medicine. We suggest that the PCM Knowledgebase and Wiki could serve as an important tool for the advancement of clinical trials and care in the field of precision cancer medicine.

Keywords

• cancer
• case reports
• genetics
• knowledgebase
• personalized medicine
• precision medicine