To address the global issue of cancer, Thermo Fisher Scientific has established the International Childhood Oncology Network (ICON). It has also launched Oncomine Childhood Cancer Research Assay, a comprehensive, next-generation sequencing (NGS) panel it developed in collaboration with Children's Hospital Los Angeles that specifically targets mutations associated with pediatric and young adult cancers.

Thermo Fisher's ICON is a resource to develop a global community spanning academic and clinical researchers who collaborate by sharing data, best practices and experiment protocols to drive deeper understanding of pediatric, childhood and young adult cancers. Membership in ICON is available through a registration process enabling access to data sets that are uploaded by network members to the ICON database.

Thermo Fisher's new Oncomine Childhood Cancer Research Assay combines specific mutations, gene amplification and fusions in a single panel. The assay, designed by leading scientists and pediatric oncologists, interrogates 203 unique genes representing multiple gene classes and 1,700 fusion transcripts in two DNA and two RNA pools using a seamless NGS workflow.