Research aims

Cancer is a disease of the genome. Each person’s cancer is different from others and each tumor has its unique abnormalities at the genetic level. Some of these anomalies are clinically significant and, if identified and characterized, can be exploited to improve the identification, management and treatment of cancer, as well as help us to understand how different patients respond to treatment.

The Cancer Genomics and Systems Biology Laboratory, Dept. of Medical Biotechnology University of Siena, aims to develop new approaches for identify and understand the genetic and biological mechanisms that underlie the genesis, progression and resistance to cancer treatment. To do this, we use advanced technologies and highly automated systems, bioinformatics and molecular biology techniques of applied mathematics and notions of artificial intelligence.

The main activities are the analysis of tumor genetic variations or molecular switches underlying tumor cell survival and resistance to the pharmacological treatments in use. The laboratory carries out genetic and functional analysis examining genome changes in many different types of cancer. Specifically, it is possible to follow changes in the genome of tumor cells on liquid biopsy samples (i.e. tumor genome released by tumor cells into patients’ plasma) detecting and characterizing the presence of specific alterations in the DNA or RNA of the tumor that can make it sensitive or resistant to various oncological treatments. Furthermore, the enormous amount of data from such experiments are used to develop predictive computational models of tumor cell behavior and for the development of valid statistical models for the interpretation of these data, to produce algorithms, signatures and characteristic profiles of the tumor state.