Structural Variants in Human and Canine Cancer Datasets

Dogs with spontaneous cancers have been considered useful preclinical models in the development of treatment strategies for human cancers in addition to new therapies for dogs. Through the comparison of genetics of spontaneous tumors across species, researchers can identify shared structural variants (SVs) in the genome that could lead to advancements in treatment. There are several active translational canine trial efforts involving some specific tumor types supported by the National Cancer Institute Cancer Moonshot project and other initiatives facilitating collection efforts. This research group has been studying canine cancer genomics and developing resources for such comparative cancer research. Additionally, the comparative genomic analyses have identified that canine cancers included various SVs that are conserved in human counterparts. This has led to increased efforts in the comparative analysis of sequencing data across species, providing novel findings and leading to utilization of canine cancers as models. Researchers will leverage their expertise in analyzing structural variants in human and canine cancer datasets to expand their study with data provided through the Pediatric Brain Tumor Atlas.