Institute for Computational Cancer Biology

Peter will talk about the Molecular archeology of cancer

Abstract

The cancer genome carries an archeological record of the tumor’s past. Over the past years, we have developed several approaches to mine that archeological record, which we collectively call 'molecular archeology of cancer'. Using these approaches, we are able to infer the subclonal architecture and evolutionary history of tumors. We applied these approaches in a largescale pancancer setting, showing that intratumor heterogeneity is pervasive across cancers and that the timelines of tumor evolution span multiple years to decades. Key driver events in tumor evolution typically occur early, and copy number gains often accumulate as punctuated bursts, commonly after genome doubling. Late genome doubling is frequent in cancer evolution and is typically followed by an increase in chromosomal instability. Our approaches increase the evolutionary information that can be obtained from tumor genome sequences and, therefore, improve our understanding of the developmental history of cancer.

About the speaker

Peter Van Loo is a Professor and CPRIT s holar at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Department of Genetics, with a joint appointment at the Department of Genomic Medicine. During his postdoc, Peter developed computational techniques to study copynumber alterations in cancer genomes and the evolutionary history and subclonal architecture of tumors. As an independent researcher, at the Francis Crick Institute in London, and later as a professor at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, he has sketched the typical evolutionary trajectories of many cancer types, allowing insight into the timelines of cancer development and into how tumors metastasize.

Contact: Laura Godfrey (+49 221 478 51455, laura.godfrey@iccb-­cologne.org), Stefanie Fleer (+49 221 478 15104, stefanie.fleer@iccb­-cologne.org)