Towards the Future of Cancer Care: A Concept Paper for the Proposal of a Medical and Public Health Cancer Genomics Platform.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: This study aims to develop the concept of a medical and public health cancer genomics platform for aggregating and sharing documentation of ongoing initiatives and data, available for EU researchers, healthcare professionals, policy makers, citizens and patients. METHODS: The context, feasibility, and potential end users of the platform were analysed; project deliverables were identified and clustered; and aspects related to the definition of the overall platform architecture and the integration of its modules were investigated. RESULTS: To define the overall system architecture should be implemented: selection of a content management system, hosting configuration and development domain setup, content management system installation, development of HTML web pages, data entry and visualisation; graphic layout design, and testing and debugging. To support modules integration, the following activities should be addressed: creation of a server analytics account; integration with social networks; and activation of a newsletter system. CONCLUSION: Cloud-based data platform enable the securely analysis and sharing of large datasets. Establishing an infrastructure to facilitate researchers' access to and storage of large volumes of biological data is of paramount importance, both to advance research and to support health policy-making processes. An online platform could help align clinical and population-based interventions and support the integration of the Genome of Europe biobanking initiative into public health genomics for cancer.