# COSMIC (Catalogue of Somatic Mutations in Cancer)

Source: https://onco.cc/collections/cosmic/  
OnCo record `cosmic` (Collection). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

COSMIC, the Catalogue of Somatic Mutations in Cancer, is the largest curated catalogue of mutations found in tumours, run by the Wellcome Sanger Institute. It also holds the Cancer Gene Census of around 750 genes, the reference mutational signatures and a cell line project; academic use is free, industry needs a licence.

## Summary

COSMIC, the Catalogue of Somatic Mutations in Cancer, is the largest curated catalogue of somatic mutations and is often described as the encyclopaedia of cancer mutations. Alongside individual mutations it carries the Cancer Gene Census of around 750 genes, which is the definitive list of cancer genes, together with the reference set of mutational signatures and the cell line project. It is run by the Wellcome Sanger Institute and is free for academic users, with a commercial licence for industry. On OnCo it is linked to the term Mutational signature, and the institution record for the Wellcome Sanger Institute points to it.

## Fields

- Kind: Collection
- Last checked: 2026-09-04
- URL: https://cancer.sanger.ac.uk/cosmic
- Holds: The largest curated catalogue of somatic mutations, mutational signatures, and the Cancer Gene Census.
- Licence: Free academic; commercial licence

## Sources

- COSMIC (Catalogue of Somatic Mutations in Cancer): https://cancer.sanger.ac.uk/cosmic

## Connected records

- institutions: [Wellcome Sanger Institute](https://onco.cc/institutions/wellcome-sanger/)
- terms: [Mutational signature](https://onco.cc/terms/mutational-signature/)
- collections: [awesome-cancer-variant-resources](https://onco.cc/collections/awesome-cancer-variant-resources/)

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JSON: https://onco.cc/api/v1/entities/cosmic.json