Research Seminar: Inferring cancer evolution

Dr. Florian Markowetz, University of Cambridge, CRUK Cambridge Institute

Tuesday 27th October, 1.00 p.m., Keynes Lecture Theatre 6

Cancer has long been understood as a somatic evolutionary process, but many details of tumor progression remain elusive. Here, I will talk about computational methods to infer evolutionary pathways leading to tumour heterogeneity. I will start by discussing how to quantify intra-patient heterogeneity by rigorous analysis of copy-number profiles from multiple patient samples. Using a study in ovarian cancer I will describe how summary statistics of phylogenetic quantification of genetic heterogeneity can predict patient survival. Then, I will present a probabilistic framework to reconstruct intra-tumor evolution from data obtained by bulk bisulfite sequencing of mixed tumor samples or single cell genomes. Our approach jointly estimates the number and composition of clones in the sample as well as the most likely tree connecting them. I will finish with an outlook how to put cancer genomics in a tissue context.