In collaboration with St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and the Munich Leukemia Laboratory, the American Society for Hematology has introduced the ASH HematOmics Program (ASHOP), which may be one of the most comprehensive collections of blood cancer data ever to accelerate discovery, according to a report of the platform and its initial findings in Blood.
“Large genomic, transcriptomic and clinical datasets for blood cancers have been generated across many studies, but they have remained disconnected,” said senior co-corresponding author Xin Zhou, PhD, Department of Computational Biology at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. “ASHOP brings these data together into one accessible platform so researchers can look at hematologic malignancies more holistically and analyze them deeper to make novel discoveries.”
Bringing ASHOP Together
The scientists aimed to build a data integration and sharing platform for hematology and hematologic malignancies.
ASHOP is an open-access resource that includes somatic alteration and gene fusion data, transcriptomic results, and clinical data from 5,960 patients with B-cell precursor and T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, acute myeloid leukemia, myelodysplastic syndromes, and chronic lymphocytic leukemia.
“Powered by the pioneering St. Jude team and ASH, the ASH HematOmics platform is an open and interactive resource that brings advanced integrative analyses of leukemia to individual clinicians and researchers,” said co-corresponding author Torsten Haferlach, MD, PhD, Munich Leukemia Laboratory.
“Our vision is that ASHOP will provide a user-friendly portal for the sophisticated interrogation of genomic and associated data, not just from cancers, but eventually from the full range of hematologic disorders,” said co-corresponding author Charles Mullighan, MBBS (Hons), MSc, MD, Deputy Director of the St. Jude Comprehensive Cancer Center and Member of the Department of Pathology at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. “This study represents an important first step that shows the feasibility and power of the approach.”
Use Cases
The study authors explained that in ASHOP, users can explore and analyze data with lollipop and matrix plots, UMAPs, clustering, differential expression, pathway expression, and more. Different omic data can be combined to define study cohorts and subgroup populations.
They presented four different use cases of ASHOP as examples:
- Stratification of DUX4-rearranged B-cell leukemias into early/multipotent and committed subgroups to explore the distinct outcomes
- Characterization of HOXA/HOXB expression patterns in acute myeloid leukemias
- Correlation of mutational burden with mismatch repair deficiency and mutational signatures
- Investigation of the TP53 alteration landscape
“ASHOP is much more than a collection of hematology data; it’s an interactive tool and resource that allows users to interrogate the data without the need for advanced coding skills,” said Robert Negrin, MD, President of ASH. “Genomic sequencing has been pivotal in driving advancements in hematologic conditions, and this database empowers the hematology community to explore genomic variants, interpret clinical correlations and uncover potential therapeutic targets.”
“With the rapid expansion of genomic and transcriptomic data, the challenge in hematology is no longer generating data, but integrating and interpreting it,” said co-corresponding author Ilaria Iacobucci, PhD, Department of Pathology at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. “The combined multi-omics and clinical data from the ASH HematOmics Program enable new questions to be explored, advancing our understanding of hematologic disease biology and therapeutic response.”
DISCLOSURES: The study was supported by the American Society for Hematology (ASH) and the American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities (ALSAC), the fundraising and awareness organization of St. Jude. For full disclosures of the study authors, visit ashpublications.org.
