# RNA sequencing analysis of Cancer

> **NIH NIH U24** · UNIV OF NORTH CAROLINA CHAPEL HILL · 2020 · $415,763

## Abstract

Abstract
Cancer is a complex disease and represents hundreds of different disease types. It is important to identify
these disease types and their underlying causative alterations to help guide and tailor treatments. Genomic
technologies have been used in projects such as The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) to characterize a large
number of cancers. However, these early genomics projects were mostly on unselected cohorts with limited
follow-up and many clinically relevant datasets were not feasible for analysis due to limitations in technologies
using formalin-fixed and small starting quantities of tissue. New initiatives of the Center for Cancer Genomics
will help us address more clinically-meaningful questions. We propose to use our expertise in gene expression
and RNA-sequencing analysis to further characterize cancer to help identify novel markers for diagnosis, novel
drug therapies and clinical associations. We will approach this in three aims. For Aim 1, we will use RNA
sequence information to identify somatic mutations, improve mapping assembly and quantification of B and T
cells, identify structural variations, and perform high level quality control including genotype checks across
sequence data for the same sample. For Aim 2, we will calculate gene and isoform levels that will be used to
identify tumor subtypes, alternative isoform usage, and application of previously defined gene signatures and
tumor subtypes. For Aim 3, we will use supervised analyses to find genes significantly associated with
molecular features and model gene expression data to look for association with clinical outcome or drug
treatment response. We expect our data, integrated with the data from other Genome Data Analysis Centers,
will uncover novel insights into cancer development, progression and treatment of cancer. We will also
leverage the information we have learned from pan-cancer analyses to identify shared genomic alterations or
pathway activity that may accelerate therapy development.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10000909
- **Project number:** 5U24CA210988-05
- **Recipient organization:** UNIV OF NORTH CAROLINA CHAPEL HILL
- **Principal Investigator:** KATHERINE A. HOADLEY
- **Activity code:** U24 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $415,763
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2016-09-15 → 2021-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10000909

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10000909, RNA sequencing analysis of Cancer (5U24CA210988-05). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10000909. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*