DR-150 Discovery and Characterization of Cancer Driver Mutations in Noncoding regions

Cancer genomes harbor a substantial number of mutations, but only some contribute to tumor development. These so-called driver mutations serve as targets for new cancer therapies. Over the past years, the search for these driver mutations has been mostly focused on coding regions. The goal of this project is to develop a statistical framework to systematically identify driver mutations in non-coding regions. We will apply this approach to all whole-genome sequencing data in the HMF database, and characterize which mutations in non-coding regions are relevant to carcinogenesis. We will then follow up on these findings using clinical and expression data.

Eliezer Van Allen Dana-Farber Cancer Institute USA