Multi-Consortia Coordinating (MC²) Center

Building on Sage Bionetworks’ role as the coordinating center for the NIH/NCI-funded CSBC and PS-ON consortia, the Multi-Consortia Coordinating Center (MC²) Center expands to include four additional research consortia within the NIH/NCI Division of Cancer Biology (DCB): TEC, MetNet, PDMC, and CCBIR. The MC² Center leverages Sage Bionetworks’ previous successes and lessons learned in four key areas: community building and engagement, interdisciplinary collaboration, resource discovery and re-use, and education and outreach. Through support of community resources, such as the Cancer Complexity Knowledge Portal, Sage Bionetworks provides the “integrative glue” to connect people, federate systems, share and harmonize data and models, and collaboratively develop robust validated tools to address the full spectrum of cancer research needs. 

The MC² Center aims to demonstrate the effectiveness of bringing tools and people together at enterprise scale. Achieved through three operational hubs focused on Collaboration, Resource Coordination, and Outreach, the overarching goals of the MC² Center are to a) use an evidence-based infrastructure to catalyze collaboration and promote a diverse and inclusive research community, b) improve interoperability and usability of DCB program data and tools, and c) support the growth of a strong, stable and diverse cancer research community beyond DCB programs.