The research group of Vessela N. Kristensen Cancer Genome Variation
 | ”If it were not for the great variability among individuals medicine might as well be science and not an art” Sir William Osler, 1892 |
The tumor initiation, progression and clinical presentation are directly dependent on its genetic and biochemical environment – the entire body. Our group is working on different projects related to how genetic variation affects occurrence of somatic alterations, gene expression patterns and genome wide copy number alterations in human breast and ovarian tumors. Understanding inherited genetic variability and how it affects crucial biological pathways is likely to lead to new successful prevention and treatment strategies.
The research in the group is focusing on constitutive variation such as single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and copy number variations (CNVs) in relation to:
- Susceptibility
- Clinical presentation
- Treatment response and adverse side effects of treatment
- Gene regulation and proximal phenotypes (RNA expression and metabolic profiles)
- Genomic instability and next generation sequencing.
- Integrated pathway analysis in breast cancer.
- The epigenetic landscape of cancer: application for prognostic and predictive biomarkers
- Functional studies in the post-omics era.
- Integrated molecular analysis of miRNAs in breast cancer with clinical outcome.
- Genetic and epigenetic mechanisms underlying treatment response.
- Germline biomarkers for clinical management of sporadic and familiar tumors
- The immune system in breast carcinogenesis and treatment response
- NorMa: Normal mammary tissue and cancer development.
- Sequencing the non-canonical genomes.
