Developing Summative Measures of Paediatric Cancer Risk

Researchers have developed an algorithm to detect DNA damage in the blood. Researchers have shown that identifying DNA damage susceptibility in adults is strongly associated with a future cancer diagnosis. This project seeks to continue this research to investigate whether this biomarker may also be predictive of childhood cancer. Algorithms are instructions used by a computer and can be used to analyze data, and this particular algorithm uses data from Whole Genome Sequencing. Sequencing the DNA, or identifying all of the genes present in tumor samples is important for better understanding cancers and creating treatments. Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) does this for the entire set of genes present in a cell. Access to the Pediatric Brain Tumor Atlas will provide researchers with the data necessary to pursue this analysis on pediatric brain cancer data.