The Herbert and Florence Irving Institute for Cancer Dynamics will continue its seminar series on the topic of mathematical sciences underpinning cancer research. The monthly seminars take place on the second Wednesday of the month, 2:00-3:00 PM EST. The presentations are open to the Columbia community (in person and online) and to researchers outside Columbia (via Zoom).
On Wednesday, October 8th (2:00 PM ET), IICD welcomes Dr. Teresa Davoli from NYU Langone. Seminar hosted by Dr. Khanh Dinh. The seminar will take place in person in Schermerhorn Hall 603 (Morningside Heights campus). If you wish to attend the seminar remotely, please register using the following link: https://columbiauniversity.zoom.us/meeting/register/Tl8bfBwRTESXQUAEr5LkNw
Title: Dissecting the Role of Aneuploidy in Cancer
Abstract: The maintenance of a normal complement of the genome is a requirement for the success of multicellular organisms. Aneuploidy refers to the presence of an abnormal (lower or higher than euploid) number of chromosomes or chromosome arms. Although detrimental at the organismal level, aneuploidy is extremely frequent (~90%) in human tumors. Despite the fact that aneuploidy is so frequent in cancer, little is known about whether and how aneuploidy contributes to tumorigenesis and how aneuploidy could be targeted for cancer therapy. What are the causes and consequences of aneuploidy in cancer? How does aneuploidy affect patients’ response to therapy, especially immunotherapy? How does aneuploidy impact the transcriptome, proteome and metabolism of cancer cells? These are among the main questions the Davoli Lab is interested in. For example, through an analysis of genomics and transcriptomic data from primary human tumors, we recently identified a negative association between the level of cancer aneuploidy and the extent of tumor immune infiltrate, especially of cytotoxic T cells. Furthermore, we demonstrated that loss of chromosome 9p is strongly associated with immune cold tumor microenvironments in head and neck cancers and other tumor types and can predict response to cancer immunotherapy. Finally, in the lab we are developing novel experimental and computational tools to model and study aneuploidy in human tumors. For example, we recently described KaryoCreate (karyotype CRISPR-engineered aneuploidy technology), a system that enables the generation of chromosome-specific aneuploidies by co-expression of an sgRNA targeting chromosome-specific CENPA-binding ɑ-satellite repeats together with dCas9 fused to mutant KNL1. Furthermore, we have developed KaryoTap, a technology for aneuploidy detection in single cells at scale, using targeted scDNA-sequencing. Our ongoing research interest is to determine whether and how cancer aneuploidy regulates different aspects of cancer development and therapy response utilizing a combination of experimental and computational approaches.
Bio: Teresa Davoli is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at NYU Langone. She earned her Ph.D. from The Rockefeller University, where she studied telomere dysfunction and aneuploidy in tumorigenesis. In 2018, she launched her lab at the Institute for Systems Genetics at NYU School of Medicine. Teresa is a V Foundation Scholar and has received the Melanoma Research Alliance Young Investigator Award, the Breast Cancer Alliance Young Investigator Award, and the Pershing Square Sohn Prize for Young Investigators in Cancer Research.
If you would like to meet one-on-one (possibly via Zoom) or attend the lunch or dinner with the speaker, please contact the event organizer.
