Comprehensive study of Oncogenic signatures

• Dr. A. R. Weerasinghe
• Ms. C. R. Wijesinghe
• Prof.  Mahesan Niranjan
• Ms. S.P.B.M. Senadheera

Cancer is a major public health issue in Sri Lanka as well as the world over. While extensive cancer research has generated large and valuable data sets, the interpretation of such data remains a major hurdle for designing more effective cancer therapy. Cancer is a disease in which abnormal cells acquire the ability to divide without control and invade other tissues. These anomalies arise due to genetic and epigenetic alterations that disrupt molecular pathways regulating genomic stability, cell proliferation, and cell death.  Since cancer is a multifactorial disease, cancer data analysis requires multidimensional frameworks and computational approaches. This research focuses on developing a computational methodology for identifying subtypes and normal cell contamination in a given tumor sample. In this study, molecular features which discriminate between tumor types will be annotated according to their role in cancer-critical processes to provide clearer biological and clinical insights. Genetic level variations and gene expression level variations are considered in this study. Predicting the number of clusters of cell populations in a culture and generating computationally and biologically significant clusters are the critical areas of this study. We are currently analyzing hard, hierarchical and fuzzy clustering approaches to understand tumor subtypes. We also expect to use PCViz and Reactome pathway tools for building more comprehensive gene clusters. The results will reveal novel drug targets and a more precise classification of cancer types, which will be broadly useful to the research community.

• Dr. A. R. Weerasinghe : arw@ucsc.cmb.ac.lk

• “Usage of Hard, Hierarchical and Fuzzy clustering methods for high dimensional gene expression data analysis” : 9th Annual sessions –  Institute of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (IBMBB) , 2017

(Data Source: ICGC data portal, GEO database)