Project 13 - Vassilis Roukos & Kathi Zarnack

This project aims to uncover how the influences of transcription, DNA topology and replication converge to determine which regions of the genome preferentially break. We will investigate whether intrinsic DNA fragility varies between cell types and how this relates to genomic rearrangements found in cancer. To address this, we include a fully-fledged bioinformatics pillar to combine elaborate genomics approaches with multi-modal data integration, quantitative comparisons and machine learning. Our project thereby provides both experimental and computational tools to study genomic instability and strongly contributes to the enhanced emphasis of the consortium on systems approaches.