MIAMI (EMBARGOED UNTIL FRIDAY, APRIL 17, 2026, 3 P.M. EDT) – Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, part of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, has founded and is leading the Florida Cancer Research (FL CARES) Network, a statewide initiative to advance cancer research and care.
Funded by the Florida Department of Health’s Bankhead-Coley Cancer Research Program, the network connects Sylvester Cancer with five other research organizations in this collaboration designed to align research efforts, share data and uncover why cancer outcomes differ across diverse populations.
Sylvester Cancer has played a leading role in the network by helping develop the data systems crucial to its success. At the network’s core is a new system called the Platform for Accelerating Collaborative Computational Cancer Research, or PAC3R, an advanced data platform that enables researchers to securely study and share large amounts of cancer information.
The PAC3R platform follows FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data principles, meaning data can be easily found, accessed, shared and reused. It’s designed after the extensive, recently unveiled Sylvester Data Portal, a cloud-based system that combines cancer data, including genetic information, treatment response results and potential drug interactions, into one data ecosystem. PAC3R will include datasets from Sylvester and collaborators, including:
- Moffitt Cancer Center
- Florida International University
- Nova Southeastern University
- University of North Florida
- University of Florida Health Cancer Center; and
- The Herbert Wertheim University of Florida Scripps Institute for Biomedical Innovation & Technology
Additionally, it will feature national resources from The Cancer Genome Atlas Project and the Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium.
At the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) annual meeting, April 17-22, Sylvester researchers and collaborators will explain how this network and its PAC3R platform offer the vital tools and datasets to advance cancer research.
“At this point, PAC3R includes 6.7 million curated drug response signatures and bioactivity data points over 30,000 molecules and more than 200 cell lines,” said Stephan C. Schürer, Ph.D., associate director of Data Science at Sylvester. “By providing these standardized computational resources, we enable the network to better identify therapeutic leads and understand the molecular drivers of cancer across diverse populations.”
Read more about Sylvester’s efforts to advance cancer research on the InventUM blog and follow @SylvesterCancer on X for the latest news on its research and care.
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Session Title: Integration of Clinical and Research Data
Presentation Number: 2732; Poster Board Number 25
Session Date / Time: April 20, 2026, 2 to 5 pm PDT
Location: San Diego Convention Center, Poster Section 2