A new cancer genomics project aims to track down the mutations lurking behind childhood cancers.

The $65 million project will sequence normal and tumour tissue from 600 children with leukaemia, brain tumours, and other cancers. It will draw upon an extensive tissue bank maintained by St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.

NIH-head and sequencing enthusiast Francis Collins is, predictably, a fan: “This is going to be the most significant set of data we can imagine in paediatric cancer,” he told Dow Jones.

Over the past year or so, data has been drifting in from other cancer genome projects (see our coverage here and here), raising hopes that such endeavours could lead to new, targeted treatments. But the collaboration between St. Jude and Washington University’s Genome Center in St. Louis, Missouri will be the largest to tackle the cancers that strike children. (By comparison, USA Today reports that the US National Cancer Institute plans to spend $25 million over the next two years on paediatric genome research.)

The focus is warranted because there is reason to believe that the genetic changes underlying cancer in children may differ from those in adults, Washington University dean Larry Shapiro told Reuters.

“It’s a huge black box and we’re struggling to understand why some kids get cancer and others live to their 90s without it,” said Rick Wilson, director of Washington University’s genome centre (Associated Press).