The Prostate Cancer Association Group to Investigate Cancer Associated Alterations in the Genome (PRACTICAL) consortium was established in September 2008. It is formed by a collaborative group of researchers interested in inherited risk of prostate cancer with the goal of identifying genes that may be related to the risk of prostate cancer. The aims of the consortium are to combine data from many studies to provide a reliable assessment of the risks associated with these genes, and to validate new findings.
The Consortium currently consists of 133 different study groups, incorporating sites in the EU, Australia, Malaysia, China, Japan, India, Africa, Canada and USA. At present, we have access to samples from over 120,000 prostate cancer cases and 100,000 controls. These numbers are constantly increasing with the incorporation of new groups.
The co-ordination of PRACTICAL is funded by Cancer Research UK and the Collaborative Oncology Gene-environment Study (COGS), a project funded by the European Commission and 7th Framework Programme and the NCI Genetic Associations and Mechanisms of Oncology (GAME-ON) initiative.