Vital Work in Cancer Research

Qlucore has announced that Dr Helena Carén has been using Qlucore Omics Explorer to research tumour growth and treatment whilst at the Department of Clinical Genetics, Institute of Biomedicine, The Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden.

The Sahlgrenska Academy is the faculty of health sciences at the University of Gothenburg, where education and research are conducted within the fields of pharmacy, medicine, odontology and health care sciences. Dr Carén has been using the Qlucore software to analyse methylation data from the Illumina platform in order to identify patterns that could help to categorise tumours into different categories of seriousness, and also to predict how the tumour is likely to develop.

"It is often very difficult to find meaningful patterns in very large datasets like these, but Qlucore’s software has made it much easier for me to understand the relevance of the data produced during my methylation analysis," said Helena Carén, PhD. "The 3D graphics, in particular, have been very helpful, since it is easier to spot important patterns when you can view your results as a 3D image, and even rotate the image, if needed, directly on the computer screen." The ultimate goal of the methylation study is to identify a set of genes whose methylation profile can accurately determine how aggressive a tumour is, as well as the most effective method of treatment. In the longer term, these studies will also help to identify the specific genes that have contributed to formation of the tumour itself.

Qlucore’s highly intuitive Qlucore Omics Explorer application adds increased creativity to this kind of research, thanks to the software’s impressive speed and statistical capability. Qlucore Omics Explorer has already gained a global reputation within the scientific community, as it allows the actual researchers – the people with the most biological insight – to study the data and to look for patterns and structures. In addition, because Qlucore Omics Explorer allows researchers to explore different hypotheses and alternative scenarios within seconds, the software is already helping to play a key role in unveiling important new discoveries