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Can novel cancer driver genes be identified by analysing mutations in cancer genomes?

With the rapid drop in next-generation sequencing costs, the analysis and interpretation of cancer genomes is currently a huge challenge. Large-scale sequencing projects such as the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC), and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) have already sequenced thousands of cancer exomes and genomes, thereby unravelling knowledge of the molecular events that take place within cancer cells and providing a critical understanding of the prioritisation of targets for therapeutic intervention.
The bioinformatic analysis applied to the vast array of publicly available cancer genomic data has allowed the discovery of “mutational signatures” and processes using the mutations that occurred during tumour development (1-4).
The objective of this proposal is to identify novel cancer genes and to analyse cancer genomes to extract information to better understand the mechanisms of tumour development. The student will apply novel bioinformatic strategies to interrogate data from >10,000 publicly available cancer genome sequences. Mutations in genes involved in DNA repair processes are known to contribute to tumour development and leave characteristic mutational signatures in tumour genomes (e.g. BRCA genes in breast cancer). The student will try to identify novel cancer genes by correlating the mutations in cancer genomes with DNA repair pathway associated genes.