Co-Leads: Matt Lazzaara, PhD, Kevin Janes, PhD, Dennis Discher, PhD

Research

Aneuploidy, the presence of an abnormal number of chromosomes, is a common characteristic of cancer cells

across tumor types. While aneuploidy impairs cell functions and leads to death in most normal cells and arrest

in many cancer cells, some copy number alterations produce proliferation and drug-resistance advantages for

neoplastic cells. Thus, aneuploidy creates a selective advantage for tumors as they progress. Aneuploidy has

classically been viewed as a random event among rapidly dividing cells, but recent work suggests that certain

physical stresses promote chromosome mis-segregation if they occur during or shortly before mitosis. In this

Cross Consortium Project (CCP), the SASCO Center will collaborate with Prof. Dennis Discher (University of

Pennsylvania), a new associate member of the CSBC, to quantify the effects of unappreciated cell stresses on

aneuploidy and link these changes to systems modeling predictions for key epigenetic events that regulate

mitotic fidelity. The collaboration is a natural extension of existing research thrusts within SASCO and Discher

lab and will reciprocally strengthen research on both sides of the collaboration by integrating themes between

SASCO projects.