Investigating copy-number signatures in lung cancer.

The main aim of this project is to investigate somatic copy-number alterations (SCNA) in lung cancer. Multiple studies showed an association between the tumour copy-numberprofile and patient prognosis. However, a deeper understanding of which specific SCNA are subject to positive or negative selection is needed. In this project, copy number profiles will be leveraged to explore the processes moulding the cancer genome at the copy number level and tools to identify which specific events are subject to negative orpositive selection will be developed.

The project will build upon previous work performed both in and outside the group and will leverage the unique set of experimental data from TRACERx (TRAcking Cancer Evolution through therapy (Rx)); a study which contains multi-region and longitudinal samples from over 800 non-small cell lung cancer patients across multiple sites in the UK.

The initial goals of this project will be to 1) improve the current state-of-the-art somatic copy-number profiling tool, GISTIC 2.0 (Mermel et al. 2011, Genome Biology); 2) create the correct model of background copy-number events; 3) extract copy-number signatures from TRACERx cohort; 4) combine the results of copy-number profiling with mutational signatures (previous work of other lab members).