Overview
COSMIC — Catalogue of Somatic Mutations in Cancer
COSMIC is an expert-curated knowledgebase providing data on somatic variants in cancer, supported by a comprehensive suite of tools for interpreting genomic data, discerning the impact of somatic alterations on disease, and facilitating translational research. It is accessed and used by thousands of cancer researchers and clinicians daily, drawing on data curated from over 29,000 scientific publications and large studies.
What It Contains
COSMIC is the most detailed and comprehensive resource for exploring the effect of somatic mutations in human cancer. Beyond coding mutations, it covers all the genetic mechanisms by which somatic mutations promote cancer — including non-coding mutations, gene fusions, copy-number variants, and drug-resistance mutations. The database is primarily hand-curated, ensuring quality, accuracy, and descriptive data capture.
COSMIC encompasses all forms of human cancer, from the most frequent cancers in lung, breast, and colon to extremely rare forms of blood cancer observed by a clinician only once or twice in a career.
Scale
The core COSMIC database contains over 1.4 million cancer samples and over 38 million somatic coding mutations.
Key Resources Within COSMIC
Over the last several years, COSMIC has substantially expanded by adding new resources: the Mutational Signatures catalogue, the Cancer Mutation Census, and Actionability tools. nih
It also maintains the Cancer Gene Census — a high-confidence list of genes with substantial published evidence in oncology — and integrates with the GDSC (Genomics of Drug Sensitivity in Cancer) database, which helps identify molecular features of cancers that predict response to anti-cancer drugs. Wellcome Sanger Institute
COSMIC-3D allows exploration of mutations within three-dimensional protein structures, their functional impacts, and implications for druggability.
Access
The database is freely available to academic researchers and commercially licensed to others.
Notes
Provides cancer gene census annotations and mutational signature assignments (SBS, DBS, ID). Cell line data (CCLE/GDSC-contributed) also present.