About - CancerHub New Zealand

Background

The CancerHub Cancer Research Network (CRN) comprises a network of researchers and research groups located in New Zealand, who are carrying out non-profit activities associated with cancer research, diagnosis and treatment. The CancerHub New Zealand web portal is presently funded by the New Zealand Institute for Cancer Research Trust through the NZICRT Chair in Cancer Pathology. CancerHub emphasises the promotion of collaborations between researchers, patients and clinicians, and of opportunities to conduct innovative collaborative cancer research.

Who is the CancerHub Cancer Research Network?

Members of the CancerHub CRN are researchers and research groups linked to six Universities (Auckland, Waikato, Massey, Victoria, Canterbury, Otago), two research institutes, and sixteen District Health Boards (DHBs) in New Zealand. The researchers can be viewed on a map of the currently associated universities and institutions located in NZ’s North Island and South Island. CancerHub is led by a Steering Committee of Principal Investigators from several NZ universities. An Executive Committee provides overall direction to CancerHub.

CancerHub also receives advice from a Scientific Advisory Board.

CancerHub Activities

Included in the very many activities in the network, members of the CancerHub CRN are involved in the study of cancer patients, cancer tissues, data, informatics, networking and associated activities.

Cancer Research Platform(s)

There are multiple cancer research platforms in NZ. A vision of CancerHub is to link together these platforms with one overarching banner into a large virtual national cancer research platform. Current cancer research platforms include:

Phase I Clinical Trials Unit (Auckland District Health Board)

Cancer Trials NZ (CTNZ)

Auckland Cancer Society Research Centre (ACSRC)

Centre for Translational Cancer Research (University of Otago)

Breast Cancer Patient Registers

Scientific Working Groups

Scientific Working Groups have been established to promote, discuss and shape research ideas and initiatives in CancerHub. The Scientific Working Groups are; i) Collaborative Tissue Network; ii) Informatics Working Groups

Informatics

Informatics supports the data resources and the enhancement of informatics tools and capabilities.

Collaborative Infrastructure

Collaboration Infrastructure supports the development and implementation of strategic approaches to promote research collaborations within CancerHub, and to non-CancerHub research organisations.

Other Activities

CancerHub also conducts other activities, including the promotion of patient involvement in research. In addition, CancerHub provides New Zealand-specific information and news about cancer on its website.

Patient involvement in research has a critical part to play in being able to improve outcomes for cancer patients in New Zealand. Naturally, patient involvement in research is governed by a set of ethical guidelines, standards, and NZ law. New Zealand’s National Ethics Advisory Committee (NEAC) is currently inviting submissions and is holding consultative workshops on its newly drafted National Ethical Standards for Health and Disability Research, involving ethical practices and governance of patient participation in research in New Zealand. This draft includes guidelines affecting patient participation in research, clinical trial research, genetics research, stem cell research, tissue studies, tissue (bio)banking, and the acquisition, storage (banking) and usage of patient-associated data. It is important to make yourself familiar with these draft national standards, and where appropriate to have your say, either directly, or through those invited to the public consultations (for example, through Prof Michael Eccles: michael.eccles@otago.ac.nz). This draft document will be relevant to the future of inequities, well-being, and outcomes currently experienced by cancer patients in New Zealand, and of course for future cancer research. A copy of the NEAC draft document can be found here. A link to the current ethical standards and documents can be found here.

CancerHub also recognizes the relevance to its goals of the New Zealand Health Research Strategy 2017 – 20127. In February 2017 the Ministry of Health (MOH) and the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) released the NZ Health Research Strategy 2017-2027. In addition to the areas of common agreement and differences, additional themes included improving ethics and regulatory systems, and building infrastructure. In relation to the latter, of the 166 written submissions that were received, approximately one fifth (i.e. approx 33) of these submissions were suggestions relating to enhancing the health research infrastructure in NZ. These were summarized under A) developing national-level infrastructure, and B) enhancing research infrastructure within and across District Health Boards (DHBs). Specific suggestions for national-level infrastructure were (ordered from the most to the least frequently mentioned):

Improve collection of, access to and integration of national health data (for example, integrate Statistics New Zealand data and the National Health Index (NHI) numbers).
Set up databases of funded health research and research results to support collaboration and translation.
Develop a national biobank; one key feature of this could be links to Statistics New Zealand’s Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI) data and to one or more national cohort studies.
Recognise the importance of e-infrastructure in its various forms, ranging from the genomic processing capability of a national genomics centre to health data integration. (There were more suggestions, 5 to 9, but these are not included here).

Under DHB infrastructure specific suggestions ordered from most frequent mention were:

A. Set up DHB-based translational research centres.
Fund DHBs so that they can provide internal infrastructure for research (suggestions 3 and 4 are not included here). In addition to these, multiple submissions were also received regarding clinical trial research in NZ.