Virtual BSC RS/Life Session: Single-cell cancer phylogenomics

Abstract

A tumor consists of an expanding population of clonal cells that differentiate to a bigger or lesser extent and disperse to nearby or distant tissues. We have leveraged state-of-the-art approaches from statistical phylogenetics, phylodynamics, and phylogeography to exploit the information contained in single-cell whole genomes from multiregional tumor samples to understand this evolutionary process. This talk will present our current progress in obtaining, processing, and analyzing single-cell NGS data from colorectal tumors. I will show how proper methods from organismal evolutionary biology can be ported to the somatic level to decipher complex tumoral dynamics over time and space with unprecedented detail.