Structure of the Alliance
There are three partnering components of the Alliance, including:
10 Tumor Glycomics Laboratories make up the primary component of the Alliance. The Common Fund Glycoscience Program funded by the NIH Office of Strategic Coordination (OSC), the Consortium for Functional Glycomics (CFG) funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), and NCI's Early Detection Research Network (EDRN) are the partnering components of the Alliance.
The goal of the Common Fund’s Glycoscience Program is to create new resources, tools, and method to make the study of glycans (sugars) more accessible to the broader research community.
The CFG and several Glycomics and Glycotechnology Resource Centers, supported by NIGMS, partner with the Alliance labs at their request. For example, the Tumor Glycomics Laboratories can seek help with technical analysis of glycan profiles, access to glycan or "glyco-gene" arrays, or obtaining specific reagents and products. CFG offers many of the unique core resources that are specific to glycomics.
The EDRN, a consortium that promotes clinical validation of cancer biomarkers for diagnosis, early detection and cancer risk or recurrence, helps the Alliance to facilitate validation of glycomic cancer biomarkers. EDRN provides a framework for design and statistical analysis, patient accrual, and collection of clinical specimens. EDRN also provides access to specifically designed reference sets (usually serum or plasma) for various cancers.