MOHCCN Update: Our Network is growing!

Dear Colleague,  
 
Welcome to a new issue of the MOHCCN newsletter! Every other month I will be using this email to update you on the fantastic developments of our growing Network, while also providing a roadmap for future work. Enjoy! 

A truly pan-Canadian network 

I want to start this issue of the MOHCCN newsletter by sharing what is probably the most exciting development since our inception: we are now officially a pan-Canadian network!  
 
The addition of the Atlantic Cancer Consortium (ACC) as our fifth regional consortium in January has helped bring in institutions from New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, PEI, and Newfoundland and Labrador to our Network. We are also establishing other key partnerships that will help us ensure the inclusion of historically under-represented populations in rural and remote areas of the country to our Network. Our agreement with the Northern Biobank Initiative in northern BC is a notable example of this work. These advances mean that we are now composed of 25 institutions (and counting!) from all 10 Canadian provinces! 
 
In the months ahead, we will continue expanding our pan-Canadian footprint, thanks to the success of our Pan-Canadian Cohorts program. This multi-year process that began in 2021 with a call for white papers has resulted in the launch of an RFA that is materializing in 20 new pan-Canadian projects added to our Network. We are now working on signing agreements with these project partners and will officially announce the funded projects when this process is completed. Over the next three years, these cohorts will contribute up to 6,000 new cases for the Network and further increase inter-provincial researcher and clinician collaboration.  

The "Year of Data Acceleration" 

We are calling fiscal 2023-24 the “Year of Data Acceleration” for MOHCCN. Our goal over the next year is to accelerate the pace of generation, curation, and ingestion of MOHCCN data so that we can set the stage for federated data sharing. To make this a reality, we are working with our partners across the country to identify current roadblocks in our data pathway, while providing resources and building capacity to address these gaps across our Network. 

Projects like the MOHCCN Pathfinder Project are instrumental in this process. I'm happy to announce that after a successful first year that saw teams in BC, Ontario and Quebec start ingesting data into the CanDIG platform, we are now extending the project so that CanDIG can be deployed in institutions in the Prairies and Atlantic Canada to accelerate data ingestion in these regions. 

To track our progress regarding data generation, you can visit the dashboard on the MOHCCN website, here. We are now updating this data dashboard monthly so you can track our progress.

Introducing the MOHCCN Working Groups 

Since the inception of the Network, we have set out to bring the brightest minds in cancer research and care together to create the Team Canada of Cancer Research.  

One of the mechanisms to do this has been through our 11 MOHCCN Working Groups, with some newly created and the relaunching of others that originally were a part of the Network planning process. Membership of these pan-Canadian groups includes patients, researchers, clinicians, and administrators that come together to shape Network policies that support data generation, curation, ingestion and sharing. 

I want to thank all members of our MOHCCN Working Groups for their invaluable work. In future newsletters, we will highlight work being done by each of these groups. 

Latest News

Growing Network; Growing team

• As of today, the MOHCCN has 25 signed members. See our member institutions in the map above.
• To better support our growing Network, Peter Mothe assumed the role of Senior Communications Specialist in February, with a focus on MOHCCN-related communications. Peter is based in New Brunswick. Erin Jackson succeeds him in the role of Communications Specialist, where she will be responsible for the TFRI’s Legacy Programs and other corporate communications. Erin works in TFRI’s Vancouver office and joined in March. They will both oversee website and channel communications for TFRI and MOHCCN.

Other News

• Last week, members of the MOHCCN team were in Banff, Alberta for the Conference on Signalling in Normal and Cancer Cells. The MOHCCN supported the conference, where our researchers and admin team learned more about the great science being done in labs across Canada and presented the MOHCCN and some of the work being done by our researchers to a new audience. 
• The MOHCCN has published more Network-approved policies, including a second version of our Clinical Data Model, our Publication Policy, and our Whole Genome and Transcriptome Sequencing Guideline. We also published our Logo usage guidelines.