Nangalia Group

Clonal trajectories and epigenetics

Our group studies DNA mutations, methylation changes and clonal dynamics in human tissues in order to understand how somatic evolution and clonal selection drive cancer and disease.

Our research

Our group is currently investigating

Clonal trajectories to blood cancers. We explore when different types of blood cancers commence their growth during the lifetime of patients and how fast these clones grow. We study somatic mutation patterns, selection landscape and clonal dynamics across the haematological spectrum from early development to ageing, healthy blood to haematological disease, and cancer predisposition to blood cancer. Together with single cell derived whole genome sequencing and analysis, we build phylogenetic tools and use mathematical modelling and population simulations. The aim of this area of work is to understand the landscape of trajectories to cancer to enable more effective earlier intervention strategies.

Methylation dynamics across tissues and lifespan. We study how the methylome changes through ageing in different tissues, using a phylogenetic approach.

Somatic mutation patterns in other species. We investigate mutation accumulation and clonal selection in blood and other tissues to understand how such patterns relate to species specific ageing.

Personalised cancer outcome models. We continue to enhance our personalised blood cancer prediction tools and build additional predictive models for cancer for use by physicians.