Brief History of Cancer Genomics: Towards Reading the Dark Cancer Genome

[Grigory Bronevetsky]

Modeling Talks

Brief History of Cancer Genomics: Towards Reading the Dark Cancer Genome Raúl Rabadán, Columbia University Tues, September 9, 2025 | 9am PT Meet | Youtube Stream Hi all, The presentation will be via Meet and all questions will be addressed there. If you cannot attend live, the event will be recorded and can be found afterward at https://sites.google.com/modelingtalks.org/entry/brief-history-of-cancer-genomics-towards-reading-the-dark-cancer-genome More information on previous and future talks: https://sites.google.com/modelingtalks.org/entry/home Abstract: This talk traces the history of our understanding of cancer as a disease of our own genome, and how cancer genomics—the technologies and the data it generates—has identified key proteins driving oncogenesis, tumor evolution, and responses to therapy, including resistance. Yet protein-coding mutations account for only ~1% of all mutations found in cancer patients; the other 99%—mutations in non-coding regions—remain largely uncharacterized. I will discuss how computational approaches are beginning to map the functional roles of mutations in the non-coding cancer genome, where such alterations reshape gene expression and cell state.   Bio: Raúl Rabadán (born 1974) is a Spanish-American theoretical physicist and computational biologist. He is currently the Gerald and Janet Carrus Professor in the Department of Systems Biology, Biomedical Informatics and Surgery at Columbia University. He is the director of the Program for Mathematical Genomics at Columbia University and previously the director of the Center for Topology of Cancer Evolution and Heterogeneity (2015-2021). He is the co-leader of the Cancer Genetics and Epigenetics Program at the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center at Columbia University. Dr. Rabadan received the 2021 Outstanding Investigator Award by the National Cancer Institute. At Columbia, he leads a highly interdisciplinary team of researchers from the fields of mathematics, physics, computer science, engineering, and medicine, with the common goal of solving pressing biomedical problems through quantitative computational models. Rabadan's current interest focuses on uncovering patterns of evolution in biological systems—in particular, viruses and cancer.