“Big Data” is a driving force in cancer research today. Sifting through the data from thousands of cancer genomes will help researchers understand what drives cancer, and help them make predictions about therapies that will be most beneficial to individual patients.
To help make sense of these data, and in particular, to apply the findings to pediatric cancers, computational biologist Siyuan Zheng was recruited in 2017 to join the faculty at The University of Texas Health Sciences Center at San Antonio. He was an instructor in genomic medicine The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. This talented researcher was retained in Texas with the help of a First-Time Tenure-Track Award from CPRIT. He joined the Greehey Children’s Cancer Research Institute.
Read More
“Big Data” is a driving force in cancer research today. Sifting through the data from thousands of cancer genomes will help researchers understand what drives cancer, and help them make predictions about therapies that will be most beneficial to individual patients.
To help make sense of these data, and in particular, to apply the findings to pediatric cancers, computational biologist Siyuan Zheng was recruited in 2017 to join the faculty at The University of Texas Health Sciences Center at San Antonio. He was an instructor in genomic medicine The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. This talented researcher was retained in Texas with the help of a First-Time Tenure-Track Award from CPRIT. He joined the Greehey Children’s Cancer Research Institute.
While at MD Anderson, Zheng worked on the Cancer Genome Atlas Project. The multi-billion-dollar project, funded by the National Institutes of Health, aims to compile the genetic and epigenetic profiles of thousands of tumors from 33 different types of cancer. Through this database, researchers hope to understand the events that cause cancer and drive its progression. They also seek to characterize subtypes, or groups of patients that may have the same cancer but different genetic or epigenetic profiles.
In particular, Zheng looked through the Cancer Genome Atlas to find examples of cancers that arose from gene fusion, where two genes that are normally separate combine to form a cancer-causing chimera. Zheng says these fused genes make excellent targets for therapy.
At Greeley, Zheng hopes to apply his knowledge of fusion to studying pediatric cancers, which are often driven by these types of chimeric genes. “Pediatric cancer is often understudied, because there are fewer cases than adult cancers,” he says. “But genomic analysis is an essential part of studying pediatric cancers; they have fewer mutations, and often one specific driver, like a fusion.” For example, Ewing’s sarcoma, the second-most common solid tumor in children is driven by a fusion event.
Patients who receive therapy targeted at the fusion gene often have a longer remission. Zheng says he is using a computational model to predict which drugs might work best, for individual patients, based on a cancer’s particular genomic profile, both in children and adults.
Zheng also studies telomeres, the protective caps on the ends of chromosomes. Cancer co-opts telomeres to permit unrestrained cell division and runaway tumor growth. Zheng is trying to figure out how this mechanism is activated in childhood cancers.
Zheng says he was drawn to San Antonio for the opportunity to work on pediatric cancers. He says the CPRIT funds were crucial in allowing him to work on multiple projects right from the start, giving him an advantage over other researchers just beginning their careers. “CPRIT not only provides the money, but also recognition, and gives you more exposure to your colleagues and potential collaborators,” he says. “I can’t say enough how important this is to young scientists.”
Zheng completed his undergraduate studies in biochemistry at Nanjing University, and his Ph.D. in bioinformatics at the Shanghai Institutes for Biological Science, both in China. He was a postdoctoral fellow in biomedical informatics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, prior to coming to MD Anderson as a postdoctoral fellow in 2011. He became an instructor there in 2015.
Read Less
