Computer Sciences Colloquium - A novel method for analyzing RNA sequencing data reveals gene mutations in normal human tissues

Advances in genomic technologies in the last decade have revolutionized the field of medicine, especially in cancer, by producing a large amount of genetic information. This plethora of data brings upon many computational challenges related to the analysis and interpretation of this information. In this talk I will provide the necessary background in genomics, presenting the latest algorithms for analyzing cancer genomes. I will then describe a novel method called RNA-MuTect, for identifying gene mutations in RNA, as opposed to conventional methods using DNA for this task. Applying RNA-MuTect to thousands of normal human tissue samples identifies multiple gene mutations, uncovering the extent of the phenomena by which cancer gene mutations are accumulated in our tissues way before the disease arises. I will finish by presenting the next generation of challenges in cancer genomics and their potential computational solutions.