Blood and tissue collections from contributing CUP patients have now started at all the 100K Genomes Project centres in the UK. The target for CUP is to collect 250 genomes.
If you want the details of the overall project it is worth visiting Genomics England’s website. If you just want a brief summary, this is how we described it in our 10 year review published in June:
In December 2012 the British government announced the ‘100,000 Genomes Project’ and on 5 July 2013 Genomics England – a company established by the Department of Health – was launched to deliver the project. Up to 100,000 patients with particularly complex diseases are having their whole genome – their personal DNA code –sequenced. CUP is one of the diseases to be studied from 2017 . CUP patients recruited to the 100k genome project will play a part much like conventional blood donors do today – providing specimens of their cancer as a service for medicine. It is not expected that individuals will benefit directly (although there may be instances where this happens). Scientists will use the data to define the changes in the tumour DNA, and try to identify factors that can be used to more accurately diagnose and understand CUP biology.