Nicholas McGranahan
Cancer Institute, University College London

Program

Cancer Evolution Beyond the Genome

Cancer development is an evolutionary process, governed by the principles of evolution by natural selection. Genomics sequencing data can be harnessed to resolve the scars of ancestral mutagenic insults and resolve the genetic drivers involved in tumour evolution, and decipher the myriad of subclones that exist within a tumour mass. However, selection operates on the phenotype not the genome of a cancer cell.
In this talk I will provide an overview of our work seeking to elucidate three fundamental features of cancer development: the genomic alterations; the non genetic alterations and the immune landscape in which these occur. I will argue that to understand cancer metastasis we need to consider cancer evolution beyond the genome.

About the speaker:

Nicholas McGanahan´s Lab lab focuses on using computational methods to explore the cancer genome and anti-tumour immunity within an evolutionary framework.
They are based within the CRUK-UCL Lung Cancer Centre of Excellence, located in the UCL Cancer Institute.