Scientific Questions Working Group

When the funding for the MOHCCN was announced by the Federal Government in March 2019 it was determined that the MOHCCN should operate according to agreed standards and guidelines recommended by nominated Expert Working Groups (WGs). Seven WGs were established: Scientific Questions, Patients, Data, Technology, Data Platform, Health Technology Assessment, and Agreements. Additional WGs were since created.

Previous work of the SQWG led to four prioritized MOHCCN scientific questions:

1. Determinants of treatment failure of immunotherapy/precision cancer medicine,
2. Investigation of temporal and spatial heterogeneity,
3. Evaluation of the clinical validity and utility of genomics for real-time clinical decision making
4. Understanding cancer biology and multiomics of rare subtypes.

These four scientific questions provided guidance to the Cancer Centres on thematic areas to help focus and assemble their cases eligible for the MOHCCN Gold Cohort.

Mandate of WG: The WG is focusing on immediate priorities for MOHCCN Gold Cohort approvals and data preparation for submission to digital platforms, in close collaboration with designated sites and MOHCCN/TFRI leadership.

The mandate of the WG is to:

• Connect and represent scientific communities across the spectrum of the Network
• Provide overarching scientific questions and themes as a guide to Network activities
• Recommend priorities for funding and future cohort selection

WG Responsibility and near-term deliverables: Aligning with priorities of the MOHCCN scientific questions, provide recommendations on up to 5 themes regarding scientific focus and potential to create MOHCCN pan-Canadian cohorts. These 5 themes will be derived from consensus from WG members, based on a variety of sources including (but not limited to): white papers, existent themes from cohorts being assembled by MOHCCN, suggestions by WG members who represent different geographical and scientific areas across Canada.

WG Strategy: Socialization of guidelines or recommendations among the WG members to identify areas of question/concern, followed by discussion of the feedback for integration and finalization of those recommendations.