Marathon of Hope Cancer Centres Network (MOHCCN)

Supported by the Canadian Federal Ministry of Health, the Terry Fox Research Institute (TFRI)’s Marathon of Hope Cancer Centres Network (MOHCCN) secured an investment of $150 million in 2019 to accelerate precision cancer medicine with matched co-funding from participating members. The long-term goal of MOHCCN is to build a pan-Canadian data-sharing platform among cancer researchers and clinicians that includes comprehensive clinical data, whole genome and transcriptome sequencing (WGTS), as well as immunophenotyping by immunohistochemistry for 15,000 cancer cases in the first five years and 26,000 cases within the decade.

Princess Margaret Cancer Consortium (PM2C), led by Drs. Lillian Siu and Enrique Sanz Garcia, is one of the founding Network members and serves as a secretariat for Ontario Cancer Consortium (OCC) that is setting the standards for future network members. Currently, the MOHCCN includes 54 member institutions across 5 regional consortia.

Across its major studies, the Cancer Genomics Program has contributed a large and growing number of cases toward MOHCCN. Through OCTANE, CGP delivered an initial 33 whole genome and transcriptome sequencing (WGTS) cases in MOHCCN Year 1 and then expanded to multiple themed cohorts (immunotherapy, non-actionable, rare cancers, and early-onset disease), culminating in 1,386 completed WGTS cases across MOHCCN project Years 1–5 (including 1,184 sequenced OCTANE cases in 2025 alone, the largest single-year contribution to date).

In addition, CGP-supported LIBERATE cohorts have contributed substantial sequencing output, with WGTS completed for 303 cases across 8 LIBERATE cohorts to date, while CGP also enabled prospective accrual in Ontario via MOHCCN-O, which has achieved 127 completed WGTS cases (and 23 multiplex IHC) so far. Collectively, these contributions demonstrate CGP’s central role in supplying deeply annotated, clinically relevant genomics cases to MOHCCN at scale.