A gene is recurrently mutated in cancer. But do these mutations really cause the disease? Or are they merely selected during normal tissue evolution? Postdoc D. Cheek had the creative idea to use patient ages to try and answer this question. Read new paper out here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Excited to share our ‘Evolutionary characterization of lung cancer metastasis’ in #TRACERx & #PEACE, published today in @nature.com in collaboration with @charlesswanton.bsky.social @nickymcgranahan.bsky.social @zaccasimo.bsky.social at @ucl.ac.uk & @crick.ac.uk. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Tumor promotion through the lens of evolution This review grew out of many long conversations, shared ideas, and lively discussions It has been a real pleasure to think together with Allan, Paul, Eve, and Abel about how tumours develop and how carcinogens shape cancer risk rdcu.be/fdC2J

Excited to share our latest work in Nature. Applying single-molecule and single-cell DNA sequencing methods, we uncover an extraordinary landscape of somatic mutations in immune checkpoint genes in autoimmune B cells, suggesting that somatic mutations may be key to autoimmunity [1/n] rdcu.be/fdqbr

Did you catch our news during #MarkSymposium? We’re accepting applications for our 2026 Emerging Leader Awards, now offering $1 million over 4 years & open to investigators worldwide! Submit your LOI by April 30: themarkfoundation.org/emerging-lea... #ResearchFunding

The conference is quickly filling up! Don't wait to sign up. We also received some funding and can offer fellowships to graduate students and postdocs. Won't cover the whole cost but will certainly make it much easier!

📢 Postdoc position available in my lab We study mutagenesis, population genetics, and Mendelian genomics—linking the origins of mutations to their biological and disease consequences. Details about research directions: labs.utsouthwestern.edu/seplyarskiy-... Please reach out if interested.

🚨 New paper from our lab just published in Nature🚨 www.nature.com/articles/s41... Discover how 🌱 tumour formation is shaped by tissue context from the very beginning. Cancer is not driven by genetics alone ✨Fantastic team led by Greta Skrupskelyte, Eduardo Rojo, @hariajith.bsky.social

Check out this important advance in mitochondrial 🧬 lineage tracing by @gaoteng.bsky.social and @wengchen.bsky.social from our group, in collaboration with @jswlab.bsky.social 👇👇

Please come join us - so excited for this conference!

IICD welcomes next David Cheek from @harvard.edu on Feb. 11 at 2 PM, as part of our seminar series. Dr. Cheek will discuss causation in cancer genomes. Register: cancerdynamics.columbia.edu/events/iicd-... cc: @harvardmed.bsky.social @naxerova.bsky.social

📢 Announcing The Mark Foundation 2026 Emerging Leader Award winners! 📢 We are committing $3.75 million to 5 visionary early-career scientists poised to lead the next generation of oncology breakthroughs. We can't wait to see their impact! themarkfoundation.org/2026/01/2026...

Very nice! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

The abstract deadline for Mutations in Time and Space 2026 closes in 3 weeks time. Sign up here: coursesandconferences.wellcomeconnectingscience.org/event/mutati... As well as thrilling science, the programme includes dinner at the beautiful King's College in Cambridge. @eventswcs.bsky.social

Happy new year/paper! A new tech (scG2P) maps genotype (DNA) to phenotype (RNA) in single cells, bringing together the worldviews of genetic & transcriptional heterogeneity. With scG2P we define how mosaicism drivers increase clonal fitness in the aging esophagus aacrjournals.org/cancerdiscov...

Somatic and germline mutational processes across the tree of life https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.28.691837v1

@kevinmonahan.bsky.social & I have an open clinical #PhD position between @stmarkshospital.bsky.social and @icr.ac.uk If you're interested in the biology of pre-cancer in the bowel & want to translate biology for cancer prevention this one could be for you... funded by the brilliant #40tude

Come to Germany and do a PhD with DKFZ. You'll be supported by an international community doing amazing science in a fantastic place. I joined the DKTK from the UK 3 months ago and couldn't be happier with how easy it has been fitting in. The quality of work here is phenomenal and you should apply!

New @natgenet.nature.com paper from the brilliant @eszterlakatos.bsky.social presents evidence that chromatin alterations disrupt antigen presentation & neoantigens in colorectal cancer. Also that immune escape is part of the "Big Bang", at the outset of CRC growth. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The exciting next instalment of Mutations in Time and Space... Open for registration now

WEEKEND LISTEN This year, the Trump admin threw everything it had at the nation's oldest and richest university 3 Harvard profs tell the story of what they saw @naxerova.bsky.social @ryanenos.bsky.social & Kit Parker www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm...

Big, beautiful trees!! SMART-PTA for whole-genome+transcriptome on thousand of single cells from the normal human esophagus 🤯 Massively scaling up the power of scWGS to build deep phylogenies and chart somatic evolution from birth throughout life. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

We have two fantastically well-funded #PhD studentships available through the @evomg-dn.bsky.social #EU doctoral network (led by brilliant @mirimiam.bsky.social, @crg.eu). These enable students to move to the UK and come and work with us @icr.ac.uk to exploit #cancer #evolution for patient benefit.

🚨 New paper alert! Sex and smoking bias in the selection of somatic mutations in human bladder www.nature.com/articles/s41... by @raquelbmi.bsky.social, @ferriol.bsky.social et al (in collaboration with Rosana Risques lab in @uwmedicine.bsky.social)

Our latest work is out in Nature today. In this paper, we introduce an improved version of NanoSeq, a duplex sequencing protocol with <5 errors per billion bp in single DNA molecules, and use it to study the somatic mutation landscape of oral epithelium in >1000 people www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Very excited to see this work in press! I think there is a reason to believe that this is a common means of stabilizing large-effect polymorphisms in general and might be an important reason for why diploidy is so common. news.stanford.edu/stories/2025...

Welcome @timcoorens.bsky.social ‪ ‬🇳🇱, our new Research Group Leader. Find out how Tim’s group is exploring using large-scale single-cell and spatial data to trace cell lineages, understand cancer origins, and uncover how mutations drive disease. www.ebi.ac.uk/about/news/p... 🖥️🧬

Thank you for thinking of us. It’s been a rough ride. My lab lost two R01s, and as painful as that is for us, we are just one drop in a big bucket of terminations. HMS is doing everything they can to help us in the short term, but we need long term solutions - please keep up the conversation.

Today is my last day at the @uoe-igc.bsky.social in Edinburgh, as I'm starting my own lab in Munich as part of the German Cancer Consortium (DKTK), DKFZ and the LMU. I'll continue to focus on DNA damage and mutagenesis to determine their role in somatic evolution and disease.

Very cool!

Introducing 2 new papers from my lab on somatic mutations in liver disease. The 1st is about a mutated gene that leads to improved clone fitness and organismal health (CIDEB). The 2nd is about a mutated gene that leads to improved clone fitness but worse overall health (TBX3). 1/8

The cells in our bodies constantly acquire mutations. But what are the patterns of mutations across tissues? How do mutations in normal cells lead to cancer and disease? These are questions we will tackle within the Somatic Mosaicism across Human Tissues (SMaHT) Network, now described in @nature.com

Delighted to share our latest on longitudinal methylation dynamics preceding cancer. Epigenetic signs of AML appear in blood DECADES before Dx. 👉 Early cancer detection 👉 Methylation drivers 👉 Epimutation rates 👉 CpG lineage tracing www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

We are recruiting students who are thinking of applying to Biology PhD programs this fall to apply for the Stanford Biology Preview Program. Please spread the word!

To what extent is cancer development deterministic and predictable..? Does the germline genome affect that predictability...? Preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

🚨 Looking for postdocs! I'm starting my lab at UT Southwestern this September. If you're interested in: 🧬 Somatic & germline mutagenesis 🐭 Evolution of mutation processes 🧠 Adjacent areas like Mendelian genomics & population genetics—please consider joining. Formal ad coming soon. DM me!

Social media grump Kamila has finally made it onto Bluesky! Please check out my new perspective on metastasis evolution in @natrevcancer.nature.com if you need a reprieve from the news. I tried my best to develop some new conceptual thoughts here, you be the judge whether I succeeded.