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[[www.unitn.it/cibio]]Our research focuses on the understanding of somatic genomic and epigenetic changes that underpin tumor evolution and progression with emphasis on the characterization of human tumors heterogeneity.

We also study the effect of inherited variants within transcriptionally active regions and chromatin regulators that act at promoter and enhancer elements. Those polymorphic regulatory regions might contribute to the initiation of cancer by modulating the transcriptional activity of multiple gene targets, such as in the case of hormone-regulated tumors.

The laboratory integrates computational and experimental work and is characterized by inter-disciplinary/inter-institutional collaborations that allow for a challenging and stimulating atmosphere and state-of-the-art approaches.

  news and notices from our group  

June 5th 2017: ASCO 2017 Whole exome sequencing of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) in patients with neuroendocrine prostate cancer presented at ASCO 2017 was featured in UroToday. Collaboration with Weill Cornell Medicine.(article).


nature_genetics.jpg October 17th 2016: Clonal Evolution of Chemotherapy-resistant Urothelial Carcinoma Chemotherapy drives treatment resistance in bladder cancer as revealed by allele-specific CLONET based analysis of bladder cancer tissues. An international team-science collaborative work with Weill Cornell Medicine and the Englander Institute for Precision Medicine (press release).


October 10th 2016: N-Myc Induces an EZH2-Mediated Transcriptional Program Driving Neuroendocrine Prostate Cancer A study from David Rickman's group with our collaboration published in Cancer Cell.


nature_biotechnology.jpg March 10th 2016: Voices of biotech Nature Biotechnology asks a selection of researchers about the most exciting frontier in their field and the most needed technologies for advancing knowledge and applications.


February 8th 2016: Divergent clonal evolution of castration-resistant neuroendocrine prostate cancer study published in Nature Medicine.


November 5th 2015: The Molecular Taxonomy of Primary Prostate Cancer TCGA-PRAD (prostate adenocarcinoma) study published in Cell with our contribution on clonality assessment and some.


November 4th 2015: Plasma AR and abiraterone-resistant prostate cancer study on the cover of Science Translational Medicine, FOCUS: Liquid biopsy: Clues on prostate cancer drug resistance


European Research Council Consolidator grant was awarded to F Demichelis:
Synthetic Lethal Phenotype Identification through Cancer Evolution Analysis (SPICE) ERC-2014-CoG; Starting Date: October 1st 2015, 5 yrs. See Positions for open positions (post-docs, PhD students, lab manager, IT technician).


May 28th 2015: We contributed to the Englander Institute for Precision Medicine study published in JAMA Oncology titled Whole-Exome Sequencing of Metastatic Cancer and Biomarkers of Treatment Response. Make precision medicine work for cancer care



Current funded projects:
Synthetic Lethal Phenotype Identification through Cancer Evolution Analysis (SPICE)
Towards Understanding the Genetic Predisposition for Signaling Pathway Activation in Aggressive Prostate Cancer
Molecular Signatures of Lethal and Indolent Prostate Cancer
Early Detection of Neuroendocrine Prostate Cancer Transformation Using Circulating Genomic Signatures
Defining Heritable Cancer Risk Variants in the Prostate

Funding agencies:
European Research Council (ERC)
Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCF)
Associazione Italiana per la Ricerca sul Cancro (AIRC) http://www.airc.it/
National Cancer Institute (NIH)

Previous funding:
Department of Defense (DoD), USA
Fondazione Trentina per la Ricerca sui Tumori http://www.ftrt.it/