Evolutionary Processes Modelling

We are interested in a variety of topics in the field of genetics. A strong focus of the lab lies on cancer as an evolutionary system and selection as a readout. This involves investigating different modes of selection active during tumorigenesis, including negative selection, in both the coding as well as the noncoding part of the genome. We analyze sequencing and other datasets and develop mathematical and computational approaches to estimate selection. An important aspect of this effort is to account for the heterogeneity of mutation rate. Estimates of the strength of selection in cancer allow for a prioritization of genes and noncoding regions by their disease relevance, with the ultimate goal of promoting therapeutic advances. We extend some of the analyses to the level of human population genetics, which is another active area of research in our lab. The main goal of our work is the quantitative description of evolutionary processes through the development of new probabilistic models and computational methods.

• Cancer evolution
• Human population genetics
• Evolution of nucleosome positioning