Description:

The Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics Departmental Seminar Series presents:

William Hahn, MD, PhD
Chair, Executive Committee for Research
Deputy Chief Scientific Officer
Director, Center for Cancer Genome Discovery
Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Institute Member, Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT

Although we now have a draft view of the genetic alterations that occur in human cancer, the number of mutations found at low frequency and the molecular heterogeneity of most cancers makes identifying genes that contribute to cancer phenotypes challenging. Determining the function of genes altered in cancer genomes is essential to develop new therapeutic approaches. To complement these genome characterization studies, we have used genome scale gain and loss of function approaches to identify genes required for cell survival and transformation. Specifically, we have performed systematic studies to interrogate rare alleles found altered in cancer genomes and used advances in synthetic gene synthesis to prospectively interrogate all possible alleles of known cancer genes. In parallel, we have performed both genome scale RNAi and CRISRP-Cas9 screens in more than 500 cell lines to identify differentially essential genes and the context that specifies gene dependency. This approach now permits us to identify and classify cancer dependencies. These studies allow us to begin to define a global cancer dependencies map.