Page 75 - Genomic Medicine in Emerging Economies

64 CHAPTER 4: Le v er aging Int ernational Collabor ations

through Colciencias and the General System of Royalties (from oil companies),
was considerably reduced in recent years (Universidad del Rosario, 2017). There-
fore an important option is to establish collaborations with institutions abroad
and apply for international research funding. The ideal collaboration occurs
when local and foreign participants equally gain from a cooperation, which
sometimes does not happen. There are many examples of research projects in
which foreign researchers or institutions “collect” samples of a less studied pop-
ulation and “disappear”. Popular terms for these types of projects are “helicop-
ter research” or “safari study” in which samples and data are obtained through
local contacts, often without considering the patient‘s interests and/or rights.
It was even common not to have approval by an Ethics Comittee or an Institu-
tional Review Board (IRB), or not obtain informed, written consent from the
patient. Fortunately, this has been changing, and Colombian Laws for Research
in Human subjects (e.g., Resolution 8430/1993 and Decreto 2378/2008) now
rigorously control and protect this type of research in Colombia.
In order to understand more about genetic and environmental cancer risk
in patients in the region, the IDC partnered with the Universidad de Antio-
quia (UdeA), a public academic higher education institution, to characterize
our population. With their own resources or with funding from other insti-
tutions, research collaborations have helped develop the oncogenetics and
cancer genetics fields in the clinical setting. Several projects are currently being
developed by the IDC such as the Study of Familial and Hereditary Cancers
in Colombian Population (Funded mostly by City of Hope), the Study of
Hereditary Gastric Cancer (funded by the UdeA and University of Califor-
nia, Davis), and the Study of Genetic and Exogenous Factors in Women with
Breast Cancer (funded by the International Agency for Research on Cancer
(IARC), Colciencias, and UdeA).
The “Study of Familial and Hereditary Cancers in Colombian Population” is
an example of an international collaboration beneficial to all participating
parties. This project is funded by City of Hope, the IDC, and the University
of Antioquia (UdeA). The main goal of the study is to identify genetic altera-
tions in our population that predispose to cancer as well as other factors that
modulate cancer risk. This study offers the possibility of initially testing the
BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes by using a panel of mutations previously reported in
different Hispanic populations, the HISPANEL (Abugattas et al., 2015; Alemar
et al., 2016; Villarreal-Garza et al., 2015). If no mutations are found, then a
complete analysis of both genes is performed as well as of other cancer-predis-
posing genes. This study is part of an international consortium, the “Clinical
Cancer Genetics Research Network (CCGCRN)” directed by Dr. Jeffrey Weitzel
of City of Hope in the United States. With the idea of learning more about
cancer predisposition and modifying factors in different populations, both
germ line and tumor samples will be studied in the future, with the written,