Cancer Biomarkers using Integrative Single Cell and Bulk Sequencing

Presenter: Akdes Serin Harmanci
Affiliation: Center for Computational Systems Medicine, School of Biomedical Informatics, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
Abstract: Cancer is a disease of genomic and epigenomic alterations. Single nucleotide changes, copy number variations (CNV), chromosomal rearrangements and modification in DNA methylation together drive the formation of a tumor. The integrative ‘omic’ approaches in cancer research have led to a deeper understanding of tumor biology and are establishing the foundation necessary to support the long-term goals of personalized medicine. In this talk, I will talk about identifying brain tumor biomarkers using integrative bulk or single-cell sequencing data. This talk will consist of two parts. The first part will cover our work where we characterized non-NF2 meningiomas through complex integrative analysis of genetic and epigenetic data. I will also explain the epigenetic and genetic mechanisms leading to atypical meningioma and malignant glioma transformation. The second part will introduce our algorithm named CaSpER, that identifies visualizes and integrates CNV events in multiscale resolution using single-cell and bulk RNA-Sequencing data.