Tumour cells accumulate hundreds and even thousands of mutations.
Most of those mutations happen during the replication of the DNA
in its cell division
sometimes incremented
due to the exposure to carcinogens such as U.V. Light or tobacco, among others.
Most of these mutations are irrelevant for the cell
and it's only few of those mutations, what we call the cancer driver mutations,
that are critical to transform a normal cell into a tumoral cell.
To find these mutations in our lab we develop computational methods
to analyse the genome of thousands of tumours
from patients that have different cancer types.
In the sequences we search for mutational patterns
that are indicative of cancer drivers.
These patterns are based on the Darwinian evolution of tumours,
which is characterized by variation and selection.
Variation is given because every time that cells acquire new mutations,
these mutations happen randomly,
and selection when one of these mutations is one of these key driver mutations
that confers a selective advantage to the cell.
Most of the analysis we have done so far are focused in the genes
that code for proteins which represents less than 2% of the genome.
At this moment we ignore what is the relevance of mutations that are in the rest of the genome,
this 98% that we call the non-coding genome.
And in our lab we are interested in discovering
these possible hidden driver mutations in the non-coding genome.
We are also interested in developing methods
that help oncologists in the implementation of precision cancer medicine.
In particular when cancer is diagnosed
often there is the sequencing of the tumour genome
and we can see which mutations have these cells.
And then we need tools that help us to interpret
what is the meaning of these mutations
because some of these mutations
are relevant to decide what is the most effective therapy for the patient.
Working on cancer research is very interesting because
understanding what does not work in cancer cells
help us go in depth into the cell biology.
And also it is interesting because it has the potential
to translate into improve cancer therapies.
I've brought this earth globe that I bought like 15 years ago in Cambridge
and it has been in my office since then here in Barcelona and in Cambridge.
And I think it is a good representation of how global is science
and how aware we have to be of everything
that is happen in the rest of the world to make our science meaningful.
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