Grant: Project Grant

Sequencing the DNA of tumors has revealed important insights into how they arise and evolve, and in some cancer types has led to design of better treatments that significantly improve patient outcomes. In glioblastoma, the most common and fatal adult brain cancer, prognosis and treatments have remained essentially static over the last few decades. DNA sequencing has revealed significant genetic diversity within individual tumors and established this as a significant and unmet challenge to development of new therapies. In this project we aim to advance our understanding of glioblastoma tumor biology by utilizing state-of-the-art technologies to profile the DNA, RNA and proteins from the same cells, enabling us for the first time to link the state of the genome (DNA) to effects on the RNA and subsequent effects on proteins. This approach will reveal which of the diverse genetic changes within individual tumors lead to functional consequences that alter cell biology, and which are unimportant. By performing these measurements in multiple locations within individual tumors, both before and after therapy, we will be able to determine if there are key changes important to disease progression, with specific attention at the protein level, where most drugs and immune therapies act.