Quantitative Issues in Cancer Research Working Seminar

Mehmet Samur, Ph.D.
Senior Research Scientist, Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

“How do Mutational Patterns of Somatic Alterations Change Spontaneously or with Treatment Pressure in Cancer?”

ABSTRACT: As a consequence of exposure to various mutagenesis, cells accumulate somatic alterations in their lifetime. These alterations become more distinct for tumor cells when they start growing at a much faster pace. Here we have evaluated whole-genome sequencing data from patients diagnosed with precursor conditions to symptomatic newly diagnosed Myeloma, newly diagnosed Myeloma, and their relapsed pairs after the first line of treatment. We have shown how somatic mutational patterns in tumors at a given time would predict risk for disease progression and get affected by treatment and how clonal and subclonal cells show different patterns.