Description:

Computational Bioinformatics Faculty Candidate Seminar
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics

“Cancer evolution and immune evasion from the chromatin perspective”

Jingyi Wu, PhD
Damon Runyon Postdoctoral Fellow
Department of Cancer Biology
Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School and The Broad Institute

Abstract: Cancers evolve through an iterative process of clonal expansion, genetic diversification, and clonal selection under immune pressure. In this talk, I will describe our discoveries of chromatin mechanisms underlying cancer evolution and immune evasion in different model systems. In IDH mutant gliomas, we discovered the chromatin mechanisms influencing cellular heterogeneity and identified genetic events in disease progression. In mouse melanoma and lung cancer cell lines, we identified the role of the histone methyltransferase SETDB1 in cancer immune evasion via its influence on the expression of transposable elements. In addition, I will discuss the innovative genomic tools we have developed and how I will leverage them to further characterize cancer evolution and chromatin regulation in these contexts.

Host: Dr. Feng Yue, Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics and Pathology