Dissecting Heterogeneity in Breast Cancer

Speaker:        Dr. Yinyin YUAN
                CRUK Cambridge Research Institute
                Cambridge University

Title:          "Dissecting Heterogeneity in Breast Cancer"

Date:           Monday, 5 December 2011

Time:           4:00pm - 5:00pm

Venue:          Lecture Theatre F (near lifts 25/26), HKUST

Abstract:

Breast cancer is highly heterogeneous and therefore precise, personalized
treatment decisions are hard to make. Because the heterogeneity arises
from different factors, we need to pursue multiple research directions in
parallel to generate a comprehensive understanding of breast cancer. To
dissect inter-tumor (population) heterogeneity, we profiled 2,000 breast
tumors using both DNA and RNA microarrays, where new subtypes were
discovered to account for the additional heterogeneity revealed in the
current stratification schemes. Since these new subtypes imply both
prognosis and functional differences, we dissected their regulatory
heterogeneity to uncover the subtype-specific driving mechanisms, and
performed functional validation of putative drivers in vitro. Finally,
image processing techniques can be combined with molecular data mining to
dissect intra-tumor (cellular) heterogeneity, which leads to the discovery
of a new prognostic factor in the tumor microenvironment. We show that
problem-specific data modeling can be a powerful approach to bridge the
gap between experiment and theory in medicine.


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Biography:

Yinyin Yuan obtained her BSc degree in Computer Science from the
University of Science and Technology of China in 2003, and her MSc and PhD
degree in Computer Science from the University of Warwick in 2005 and
2009. She is currently a postdoctoral Fellow at Cambridge Research
Institute Cancer Research UK, and a Junior Research Fellow at Wolfson
College, University of Cambridge. Her research interest is developing
problem-specific modelling techniques to interrogate complex human
diseases from multiple perspectives, combining images, gene expression,
copy number alterations, and microRNA activities.