Lectures and seminars BioNut Seminar Series - "Shining light on the cancer genome"

Welcome!

The BioNut Seminar Series is a seminar series where the different group leaders at the Department of Biosciences and Nutrition will invite and host a seminar on various Thursdays throughout the year. 

A limited number of sandwiches and drinks will be served on a “First come – first served” basis.

Abstract

In this talk, I will describe some of our efforts to unravel mechanisms governing mutation distribution and recurrence in cancer genomes, motivated in part by the goal of improving the identification of cancer driver mutations. Specifically, we have come to focus on mutagenesis by ultraviolet (UV) light in skin cancers and mutations in non-coding DNA. Skin cancers pose a unique challenge due to the presence of numerous potent UV mutagenesis hotspots in gene regulatory regions; a type of localized mutational phenomenon that has confounded the search for recurrent non-coding driver events. To decipher the mechanism underlying such mutation hotspots, we have used a combination of computational and experimental techniques, including high-throughput UV damage lesion mapping by CPD-seq and, more recently, Capture CPD-seq. I will also discuss some of our ongoing research that builds upon these findings and methods. This includes new computational methodology for driver mutation discovery and the utilization of UV damage mapping as a tool to study protein-DNA interactions.