Decoding cellular plasticity and spatial phenotypes in cancer
Aaron Newman, PhD
Associate Professor, CZ Biohub Investigator, Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Department of Biomedical Data Science, Stanford University
Friday, November 15, 2024
11:00am - 12:00pm
James H. Clark Center, Room S360, 3rd floor next to the Coffee Shop
Zoom link
Abstract
Multicellular ecosystems are fundamental units of tissue organization and key elements of phenotypic variation. In cancer, such ecosystems – arising from immune, stromal, and/or malignant cells – form dynamic signaling hubs that powerfully influence progression, immune evasion, and response to therapy. Moreover, within these hubs, cellular plasticity and stem cell regulatory programs play critical, yet poorly understood, roles in cancer pathogenesis. We have developed novel computational methods to resolve cell states and multicellular communities, tumor developmental hierarchies, and single-cell spatial relationships from genomic profiles of clinical biospecimens. In this talk, I will highlight these tools and illustrate how they can be applied across human malignancies to address multiple biological and clinical questions of interest.