tv.qiagenbioinformatics.com

Unveiling COSMIC’s secret: Curating gene and somatic variant data to power...

Fri, 24 Oct 2025 12:53:58 GMT

The Cancer Gene Census (CGC) is a widely used module within the Catalogue Of Somatic Mutations In Cancer (COSMIC) that comprises an ongoing effort to catalogue and describe all genes with causal impact in human cancer. In CGC, genes are characterized according to their roles in cancer – tumor suppressor, oncogene or fusion gene – and divided into two tiers based on the strength of supporting evidence. On

October 15, our COSMIC and QIAGEN field applications experts will walk you through the scientific and curation processes behind CGC. We will also explore another module, the Cancer Mutation Census (CMC), which classifies coding variants according to their computed pathogenicity. This helps prioritize variants by highlighting mutations with proven functional or clinical relevance, supporting faster interpretation and decision-making.

You will learn about:

• The criteria used to evaluate genes for inclusion into the CGC

• The structured information captured within the CGC and CMC modules

• Their real-world applications across research and clinical contexts

Speaker Info:

Ellen Wiedemann is an Application Scientist at the Welcome Sanger Institute with over a decade of experience in next-generation sequencing (NGS) and bioinformatics.
Kyle Nilson, PhD is a sequencing-focused molecular biologist with a background in biochemistry and technical support. As a field software trainer at QIAGEN Digital Insights, Dr. Nilson works closely with our global bioinformatics team to provide direct customer support and assist with software training, implementation and optimization.

Leveraging expert-curated knowledge from COSMIC and QIAGEN to avoid pitfalls,...

Wed, 13 Mar 2024 13:05:09 GMT

The cancer drug discovery landscape is shifting. While research continues to grow in cost and complexity, the pace of development has never been faster. Biopharmaceutical companies can’t afford to waste time and resources pursuing ineffective or unsafe ideas.

In this talk, our experts discuss how biopharmaceutical companies can leverage key genomic, biomedical, and clinical trial databases to improve and accelerate cancer drug discovery while avoiding potential pitfalls. Through a series of use cases, attendees will learn about expert-curated knowledge from the Wellcome Sanger Institute and QIAGEN, and how to use these resources to better predict cancer-driving effects of mutations, identify available drugs that target specific variants, and accelerate indication expansion and repurposing of existing cancer therapies.

Learning objectives:

Examine use-cases of how to leverage expert-curated databases across multiple phases of cancer drug development.
Discover key applications of these databases, including determining the function, frequency, and actionability of specific mutations.
Discuss potential pitfalls and clinical consequences, and how to avoid them early with data-driven drug target and biomarker qualification.

Using COSMIC to predict, identify, and avoid mutational consequences of...

Mon, 11 Mar 2024 13:14:49 GMT

Whether your lab is researching and developing targeted cancer therapies or you are analyzing and interpreting diagnostic tests at the point-of-care, a critical part of your workflow is understanding the structural and functional impact of cancer-related mutations.

The Catalogue Of Somatic Mutations In Cancer (COSMIC) is an expert-curated database encompassing a wide variety of somatic mutation mechanisms causing human cancer. Containing more than 24 million somatic variants with detailed information on mutation distribution, effects, and signatures, COSMIC helps users better predict the cancer-driving effects of mutations and identify available drugs that target specific variants. COSMIC continues to expand its utility with continuous updates to its Mutational Signatures, the Cancer Mutation Census, and Mutation Actionability in Precision Oncology products.

To illustrate key applications of these features, this webinar focuses on how COSMIC can be used to avoid mutational consequences in cancer drug development and to profile the mutational signatures of cancer therapies in clinical samples.

Through these clinical and discovery use cases, attendees will learn:

· How to evaluate genomic loci using the comprehensive coding and non-coding variant annotations within COSMIC

· How to integrate these variants with curated findings and summaries of mutational impact and clinical actionability

· How mutational signatures could be useful for clinical diagnosis and drug development applications now and in the future

Translating COSMIC's gold standard data into actionable insights

Wed, 13 Dec 2023 01:55:25 GMT

As the vast landscape of genetic oncology continues to expand, the ability to understand and utilize the full potential of this rich data becomes increasingly challenging. As a result, researchers, scientists, and clinicians need an accessible, streamlined and standardized way of keeping track of this potentially crucial, ever-growing body of actionable knowledge. Over the course of 20 years, COSMIC, the Catalogue Of Somatic Mutations In Cancer, has expertly curated the world’s largest, most comprehensive database for somatic mutation information relating to human cancer. Today, COSMIC is used worldwide by revered research and clinical institutes, biotech and pharmaceutical companies, and more.

In this webinar, Leonie Hodges, Scientific Communications Officer for COSMIC, will delve into the wide range of datasets that COSMIC offers, detailing the content, how to obtain actionable insights from the genomic data, and how to potentially use this data for real-world applications. Following the talk, there will be a live Q&A with Jennifer Wilding, Scientist Curator at COSMIC and Alex Holmes, Senior Database Curator at COSMIC.

Insights into cancer genomics via COSMIC v98

Fri, 21 Jul 2023 13:51:59 GMT

Our understanding of cancer mechanisms, genetics and complexities continues to expand rapidly. Without a streamlined, standardized and easy to understand organizational system to keep track of this plethora of knowledge, potentially crucial data can effectively be lost. Trusted by scientists for nearly 20 years, COSMIC is the world’s largest, most comprehensive, expert-curated resource for exploring the impact of somatic mutations in human cancers.

Join this webinar with Leonie Hodges, Scientific Communications Officer for COSMIC, to take a journey through COSMIC’s mission and data annotation processes, the results of the latest curation focus on rare skin tumors, and how the team has revamped COSMIC’s download files to improve interoperability, accessibility and useability.

Precisely target the causes of malignancy on a molecular level

Thu, 09 Jun 2022 14:16:00 GMT

Key to precision oncology is the development of expert databases that organize and standardize information on cancer-related genetic variants, as well as their associated diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic implications, in a way that is easily accessible to multiple users. COSMIC, the Catalogue of Somatic Mutations in Cancer, was established nearly 20 years ago, and has been a gold-standard resource for this data ever since. Today, COSMIC is used on a daily basis in research labs, cancer centers, biotech, and pharmaceutical companies, where it comes into play as one of the key, trusted sources to analyze genomic data.

In this webinar, Dr. Zbyslaw Sondka, COSMIC's Senior Scientist, and Rebecca White, COSMIC's Scientific Communications Manager, will walk you through 3 key-aspects of the industry leading somatic mutation database.

At the conclusion of this webinar, participants will be able to:

· Apply the breadth and depth of COSMIC's high-quality somatic mutation data to identify proteins, biological processes, and pathways driving disease, which can be used to design new therapeutic approaches that precisely target causes of the malignancy on a molecular level.

· Use tools and resources within COSMIC to bring actionable meaning to genomic data, such as the identification of driver mutations, functional biological consequences, and clinically significant somatic variants, which can aid diagnostics and treatment decisions.

· Explain how COSMIC's expert curation process enables the accumulation and integration of data on rare cancers (over 1500 unique cancer types have been recorded to date), and how this data could enable the development of cross-cutting solutions based on molecular behaviors and genetic similarities between cancers rather than their origin-location.