Thank you very much for the opportunity to address you today. I understand you're interested in hearing about the nature of our research: success stories, challenges, and recommendations.
I'll begin by providing a very brief history of the BC Cancer Agency Genome Sciences Centre, which is the entity I direct.
The Genome Sciences Centre was established by Doctors Victor Ling and Michael Smith in the late 1990s with a vision to develop technology to the point where routine decoding of cancer DNA would be possible. At the time I joined the effort, around 2000, there were something like a dozen employees. We went through a period of capacity-building and reputation-building over the next few years and the next punctuation mark in our development came, I would say, with the sequencing of the SARS coronavirus in collaboration with Dr. Frank Plummer, who is there with you today, and Dr. Robert Brunham at the CDC, and other folks too. Why that was significant in the context of our current work is that it established that DNA sequencing could reveal the enemy, if you will.
Capacity-building continued and in 2006 and 2007 we became one of four international early access sites for a new brand of machine, a new type of next-generation DNA sequencer. This DNA reader is capable of reading all the letters in the human genome at vastly increased rates. At that time, the price for a human genome was in the order of $75 million. Fast-forward to today. We are a leading international centre with the capacity to do something like 3,000 accurate human genomes annually and with world-leading computer infrastructure. Right now at our centre at the BCCA we have 60 teraflops of computer capacity operating, as well as 7,000 computer cores, and seven petabytes of disk space, with the cost of an accurate human genome now less than $5,000 and dropping.
In the last five or six years, we have seen the cost of a human genome sequence decrease from $50 million to $5,000 today, and around the world many have recognized the kinds of things that could be done with cheap and accessible DNA sequencing.
Today, principal investigators at the Genome Sciences Centre are involved in 392 projects, which total something like $590 million in research funding. Currently active are 110 projects valued at $248 million to the end of 2016, and 543 additional collaborations: 358 of those local, 83 pan-Canadian, and 101 international in scope.
Funding sources are a big deal. We spend between $20 million and $25 million a year, and we have to raise all but $1 million of that through grant applications, both Canadian and international. Our current funding distribution is 75% Canadian and 25% from the U.S.
Significant funders of our operation include Genome Canada, Genome British Columbia, CIHR, the National Institutes of Health, and the Canada Foundation for Innovation. This leads me to some of the challenges we face in the operation of our centre. Our centre is meant to be a highly collaborative entity, and in fact Dr. Huntsman, who is sitting here with me, and I work very closely together and will continue to do so as we use this kind of technology to unravel the mysteries of cancer.
In order to operate a centre such as ours and maintain the broad collaborative base that I think benefits us, and indeed the people who work with us, continued access to large-scale funding is absolutely essential. We applaud the existence of Genome Canada. We are encouraged that the Canadian Institutes of Health Research are also supporting genome science. We are grateful for access to the National Institutes of Health funds, which, over the years, have resulted in more than $135 million coming into B.C. for our operation. Without the CFI, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, we would have no access to leading-edge technology. We are truly grateful and thank all of these organizations for their continued support of genome science.
We would very much like to emphasize that a long-term commitment to keeping infrastructure current and at the leading edge is absolutely required for the success of large-scale activities like ours, and for success in the new era of personalized medicine.
CFI does an amazing job of making opportunities available, but we would like to recommend that the frequency of those opportunities be increased. In some instances, DNA sequence instruments may not compete with icebreakers for funding. We're less impressive than an icebreaker, I guess, but that's the kind of competition we find ourselves in sometimes.
This brings me to personalized medicine, which I was asked to comment on. As DNA sequencing costs have decreased, groups around the world have recognized the ability, or the imperative, to apply this technology to try to understand the molecular signatures in cancer and to develop more effective therapies.
We were one of the first in the world to publish, in 2010, our early observations on the use of DNA sequencing to treat a rare cancer. I'm pleased to report that we are engaged right now, in collaboration with Dr. Janessa Laskin here at the B.C. Cancer Agency, and Dr. David Huntsman and others, in an ongoing effort to more systematically apply the technology to try to understand—in poor-prognosis, treatment-resistant disease—how we might better use the resources of the health care system.
The project looks very much like sequencing DNA, finding mutations and other errors of the genetic code in the cancer, and then positioning those mutations and errors against existing drugs to try to find new drugs or new drug combinations that might benefit the patient. We think this is an entirely sensible thing to do, but it turns out that there are many roadblocks.
One of the biggest roadblocks for us is not the technological hurdles, but rather access to drugs. When we find a new drug combination that we think a patient should receive based on her molecular profile, that drug, in all likelihood, is not indicated for that condition. This leads to some roadblocks in trying to get new drugs for patients. In a discussion last night with an individual doing similar work in the United States, at an organization called TGen, it was interesting to note that they had experienced exactly the same stumbling blocks.
Perhaps this is something the committee would care to consider: in this era of personalized medicine, how do we make the latest drugs available to patients whose molecular profiles indicate that they might benefit?
That's the end of my comments. Thank you.