Research Interests

ROCK Breast Cancer Knowledge Base

The clinical and pathological heterogeneity of breast cancer has instigated efforts to stratify breast cancer sub-types according to molecular profiles. These profiling efforts are now being augmented by large-scale functional screening of breast tumour cell lines, using approaches such as RNA interference. We have developed the ROCK Breast Cancer database to provide a unique, publicly accessible resource for the integration of breast cancer functional and molecular profiling datasets. ROCK provides a simple online interface for the navigation and cross correlation of gene expression, aCGH and RNAi screen data. It enables the interrogation of gene lists in the context of statistically analysed functional genomic datasets, interaction networks, pathways, GO terms, mutations and drug targets. The interface also provides interactive visualisations of datasets and interaction networks.

The disease-specific focus of ROCK will continue to assure that it differs in its function, scope and content from other online resources. We plan to add not only new datasets for our existing range of supported experimental platforms, but also to extend the database infrastructure to support SNP genotyping data, DNA methylation arrays, shRNA barcode screens and next generation sequencing (NGS) data. Furthermore, we aim to expand our in-house curated pathways to give complete and up-to-date coverage of key breast cancer relevant pathways, particularly those involved in DNA repair and oestrogen signalling.

Find out more about Dr Marketa Zvelebil's research on the Breakthrough Breast Cancer website