New research funding to study genetic changes in single cancer cells

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Her team is advancing the understanding of cancer by focusing on a genetic phenomenon known as aneuploidy - an irregular number of chromosomes – which leads to variations in DNA copy number between individual cells. These genetic changes are common in cancer cells and are thought to play a critical role in tumor progression and treatment resistance, but their exact impact remains largely unclear.

Her research team has developed new computational approaches to study these changes at the single-cell level. Now, by integrating gene expression and chromatin accessibility data from individual single cells, the so-called multiomic sequencing, they want to robustly identify variations in chromosome copies (CNVs), generating a more precise tool to explore how genetic diversity within a tumor influences its growth and response to treatment.

By applying these newly developed methods to cancer datasets, her team wants to unravel the intricate relationship between expression, chromatin accessibility, and copy number variations during tumor evolution and response to treatment. This study could provide vital insights into the role of genetic heterogeneity in cancer and pave the way for new oncology research methods.