2018 SRE Project

Using Phylogenetics to Understand Cancer Tumor Evolution

Participants:
Amelia Berle, Lewis & Clark College
Diego Castedo Pena, North Carolina State Univ.
Sadhana Chidambaran, Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick/Piscataway

Mentors:
Dr. Brian O'Meara, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Univ. of Tennessee
Dr. Mike Gilchrist, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Univ. of Tennessee

Project Description. The transition from normal cells to cancer is an example of a within-patient evolutionary process.  With advancements in sequencing technology, it has recently become possible to begin applying models of protein evolution to cancer genomes. The aim of this project is to apply a mechanistic model of protein evolution developed in the Gilchrist and O'Meara labs to publicly available cancer genome datasets.  Our goal is to deepen our understanding of cancer by quantifying the nature and strength of natural selection on tumor related proteins using an explicit and well defined evolutionary framework.

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From 2008 until early 2021, NIMBioS was supported by the National Science Foundation through NSF Award #DBI-1300426, with additional support from The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.