The National Cancer Institute (NCI) today announced grant recipients for its Cancer Genome Atlas project, including three institutions that are using upstart microarray platforms from Agilent. Instead of tools from Affymetrix, the University of North Carolina, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center will all use technology from Agilent.

The three institutions were among seven awarded a combined $35 million over three years in NCI grants as Cancer Genome Characterization Centers (CGCC). All three will rely on Agilent microarrays, reagents, hardware and data analysis tools. Each CGCC is expected to process a minimum of 1,000 clinical samples per year.

The CGCC initiative emphasizes high-throughput, high-resolution technologies to detect comprehensively genomic, epigenomic and transcriptome aberrations, including alterations in DNA segment copy numbers, translocations, loss of heterozygosity, altered DNA methylation patterns and changes in gene expression, all of which may play a role in cancer. The pilot project will explore the benefits of a systematic approach for analyzing specific types and subtypes of tumors.