Laboratory of Cancer Genomics

The Imielinski lab applies cutting-edge sequencing and data science approaches to understand the evolution and impact of complex and noncoding variants in cancer genomes. We use long-range sequencing and chromatin profiling to assess how complex somatic rearrangements perturb cancer epigenomes. We are also interested in links between the chromatin state of healthy and precancerous cells and the patterns of somatic variation observed in cancer. Finally, we are interested in neutral somatic mutation patterns as readouts of mutagenic exposure, DNA repair defects, and endogenous mutation processes in human cells.

Active Projects

• Cancer genome assembly from 10X Chromium linked reads
• Profiling epigenomes in highly rearranged cancer samples
• Identifying footprints of mutational processes in whole genomes sequences of human cancer samples and engineered model systems
• Identifying signals of positive somatic selection in cancer whole genome data