Researchers at the centre are answering three big questions in cancer medicine: why are humans so vulnerable to cancer; what determines the unpredictable development of cancers in the body over time; and why is drug resistance so frequent?
Computational biologists, geneticists, cell biologists and clinical scientists are working together to explore exciting new avenues of cancer-related evolutionary research. Researchers are identifying the genetic diversity within individual tumours, and exploring the use of genetic profiling of tumours as fingerprints that could predict progression of disease, metastases or drug resistance.
Professor Andrea Sottoriva, Leader of the Evolutionary Genomics and Modelling Team, is currently the Director of the Centre for Evolution and Cancer. Other researchers at the centre include Professor Sir Mel Greaves, Dr Marco Gerlinger, Dr Yinyin Yuan, Dr Stefano Lise and Professor Nicola Valeri.
The Centre was established with support from a Strategic Award from the Wellcome Trust.