Simone Zaccaria
@zaccasimo.bsky.social
CRUK Career Development Fellow Group Leader of @ccg-ucl.bsky.social at the UCL Cancer Institute, @CRUKLungCentre, and Visiting Scientist at the Francis Crick W: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/cancer/zaccaria-lab W: https://sites.google.com/view/ccgresearchgroup
Join us In London for #MAP2026 to think how we can shape the next generation of molecular precision oncology! #esmomeetings 👇
ESMO - European Society for Medical Oncology@myesmo.bsky.social · 2mo ago👉 Dr. Nnenna Kanu invites you to London for the Molecular Analysis for Precision Oncology Congress 2026—join the precision oncology community on 10–11 September. ⏰ Register by 8 July and save! #MAP2026 #esmomeetings 🔗 https://ow.ly/y4mp50Z6H69
🎓ABSOLUTELY BURSTING WITH PRIDE! Huge congrats to our @ccg-ucl.bsky.social first doctoral graduates: Dr @rijazaidi.bsky.social, Dr @abibunkum.bsky.social & Dr @ojlucas.bsky.social!🎉 Whatever pathways they choose next, I have no doubt these brilliant minds will lead critical advances in our society!
In colon, stem cells divide & so do the crypts they reside in: a multi-level evolutionary process. D Mallo, P Bousquets @heathergrant.bsky.social @calumgabbutt.bsky.social have made "PhyPhum" to lineage trace somatic evolution in human glandular tissues www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... @icr.ac.uk
biorxiv.org
🚨 Huge honour to have helped supervise this landmark PEACE study! New insights into metastasis + a unique dataset of unprecedented resolution on metastatic evolution and dissemination that we hope will drive future advances. 🙏 @cancerresearchuk.org @uclhresearch.bsky.social Please take a look 👇
Jamal-Hanjani Lab@jamal-hanjani-lab.bsky.social · 3mo agoExcited 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...
Using MACHINA from @braphael.bsky.social's lab to infer metastatic migration patterns, we found that NSCLC primaries had multiple seeding subclones more often than a single seeding subclone. 4/9
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...
Evolutionary characterization of lung cancer metastasis - Nature
DNA-sequencing data from primary tumours and paired metastases from participants in the TRACERx lung study and PEACE autopsy programme are used to analyse the metastatic diversity of advanced non-smal...
nature.com
We held the first #CANPOP symposium today (cancer population genetics club) @icr.ac.uk. 6 excellent & didactic talks, all applying mathematical #popgen theory to dissect somatic evolutionary dynamics: spanning the full range of pre-cancer, metastasis through to 6000 year old transmissible cancer...
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...
Epigenetically driven and early immune evasion in colorectal cancer evolution - Nature Genetics
This study nominates immune escape as an early event in colorectal cancer and shows how this can be driven through both genetic and epigenetic changes.
nature.com
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...
Huge congratulations to the lead applicants to our Development Fund 2025 on their innovative ideas! 👏 Özgen Deniz; Jonathan Fisher; Paul Grevitt; Jit Sarkar; Adam C Sedgwick; Emmanouil Stylianakis; and @zaccasimo.bsky.social 🎉 Find out more about their projects here: www.colcc.ac.uk/development-...
Development Fund
CRUK City of London Centre Development Fund The CRUK City of London Centre brings together the discovery science of the Crick and the cross-disciplinary, translational and clinical expertise at UCL,...
colcc.ac.uk
Studying cancer evolution needs multi-region or single cell seq for phylogenetics, right? Amazingly (I think!) we found single-sample bulk methylation suffices, via analysis of "fluctuating methylation". In @nature.com today led by brilliant @calumgabbutt.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Fluctuating DNA methylation tracks cancer evolution at clinical scale - Nature
Cancer evolutionary dynamics are quantitatively inferred using a method, EVOFLUx, applied to fluctuating DNA methylation.
nature.com
🧨Exciting new pre-print 🧨 Introducing ppmSeq - cost effective, scalable dual-strand 🧬🧬 sequencing. Scalability & ultra-low error in one! A game changer for somatic genome discovery science and cfDNA clinical apps. Check out thread for deets!
Alex@alexpellancheng.bsky.social · 12mo agoHighly accurate sequencing OR high throughput? We refuse to choose. Introducing ppmSeq, a method built to deliver both. Our latest from the @landau.bsky.social lab with Ultima Genomics 👀👀👀 See ⬇️ for a primer on the next frontier of genomics www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
🚨 We're hiring a sequencing technician in #TRACERx! Join world-leading teams at @TheCrick & @uclcancer, working at the forefront of cancer research. Want to apply cutting-edge genomic tech to understand cancer evolution? Apply now! 👉 www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/... #Genomics #CancerResearch
UCL – University College London
UCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).
ucl.ac.uk
1 in 2 people will get cancer in their lifetime. Our team'll still run @cancerresearchuk.org Muddy Race also this May to highlight the importance of funding cancer research and improving patient outcomes Please support us if you can! #RaceforLife 👉 fundraise.cancerresearchuk.org/team/computa...
Computational Cancer Genomics (CCG) Research Group
We are the Computational Cancer Genomics (CCG) Lab at the UCL Cancer Institute, a group of passionate scientists and clinicians who work on developing computational methods to unravel cancer's mysteri...
fundraise.cancerresearchuk.org
Not only are you a brilliant PI and an incredible mother, but you’re also a role model for women in science. Your strength and dedication inspire us all!
Johanna Joyce@johannajoyce.bsky.social · last yr.Not long after I started my lab, a prominent scientist told me it was “impossible” to be a successful PI and a mother Don’t ever let the naysayers tell you it can’t be done - of course it can! #HappyMothersDay this weekend to all the amazing scientist mamas raising their wonderful kids 🥰
I'm attending #ISMBECCB2025 in Liverpool, United Kingdom from July 20-24. Who else is going? Register here and don't miss it! invt.io/1bxbyktm0wq
I'm participating the ISMB/ECCB 2025 conference, join me!
Register now
invt.io
Huge congratulations to now PhD @alexsteinresearch.bsky.social and supervisor @benjaminwerner.bsky.social , well deserved! It has been a pleasure to listening to and discussing such a great amount of work and how it all came together
Benjamin Werner@benjaminwerner.bsky.social · last yr.Congratulations to a successful viva Dr. @alexsteinresearch.bsky.social Many thanks to @cancerevo.org and @zaccasimo.bsky.social to be examiners!
To what extent is cancer development deterministic and predictable..? Does the germline genome affect that predictability...? Preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
A big moment for our Centre - the first algorithm to identify cells responsible for aggressive tumour growth. SPRINTER can measure proliferation of distinct clones within the same tumour, using DNA sequencing data. This could facilitate better prediction of cancer progression, informing treatment.
Simone Zaccaria@zaccasimo.bsky.social · 2y ago🚨So proud to present the first study from our @ccg-ucl.bsky.social group together with @charlesswanton.bsky.social @NnennayaKanu and led by @ojlucas.bsky.social with key collaboration @sophie-ward.bsky.social and fundamental support @rijazaidi.bsky.social @abibunkum.bsky.social & others Out now👇 🧵👇
How much do algorithmic and experimental choices drive the accuracy of reconstructing tumour evolution? In this Cancer Research commentary, @zaccasimo.bsky.social and I discuss a recent Nature Biotech benchmarking paper exploring this question: bit.ly/3VAMRQs
Tumor Evolution Reconstruction Is Heavily Influenced by Algorithmic and Experimental Choices
Tumor progression is an evolutionary process during which cells acquire distinct genetic alterations. Several cancer evolutionary studies reconstruct this evolutionary process by applying bulk DNA seq...
bit.ly
🚨 Very proud of this commentary led by @rijazaidi.bsky.social reasoning on the impact of methods and experimental design on cancer evolution understanding, motivated by the outstanding work of @TheBoutros, @VanLooLab, @kellrott et al Original work 👉 doi.org/10.1038/s415... Our Commentary 👇
Crowd-sourced benchmarking of single-sample tumor subclonal reconstruction - Nature Biotechnology
Benchmarking of tumor subclonal reconstruction algorithms finds that interalgorithm variability overwhelms intertumor variability and identifies key quality metrics.
doi.org
Rija Zaidi@rijazaidi.bsky.social · 2y agoHow much do algorithmic and experimental choices drive the accuracy of reconstructing tumour evolution? In this Cancer Research commentary, @zaccasimo.bsky.social and I discuss a recent Nature Biotech benchmarking paper exploring this question: bit.ly/3VAMRQs
Reposting this list of #cancer #evolution scientists, in case its useful for the many newcomers.
Trevor Graham@trevorgraham.bsky.social · 2y agoI've started a list of people working on #cancer #evolution. Many more to be added, so do let me know if that is you. Also if you would like to be removed. go.bsky.app/QuAF4Mo
So proud that our paper introducing SPRINTER to characterise clone proliferation through cancer evolution is out in Nature Genetics!
Simone Zaccaria@zaccasimo.bsky.social · 2y ago🚨So proud to present the first study from our @ccg-ucl.bsky.social group together with @charlesswanton.bsky.social @NnennayaKanu and led by @ojlucas.bsky.social with key collaboration @sophie-ward.bsky.social and fundamental support @rijazaidi.bsky.social @abibunkum.bsky.social & others Out now👇 🧵👇
🎉 Hugely honoured & happy to be selected for the @embopress.org EMBO Young Investigator Programme 2024! Exciting opportunity for our group @ccg-ucl.bsky.social & grateful for the support of @uclofficial.bsky.social @uclnews.bsky.social & funders @cancerresearchuk.org www.embo.org/press-releas...
Twenty-seven scientists become EMBO Young Investigators – Press releases – EMBO
The group leaders join an international network of nearly 800 life scientists and receive financial support
embo.org
We are so grateful to @qianxidu.bsky.social for this outstanding News&Views piece highlighting our recent SPRINTER work and framing it so beautifully within the literature. A truly valuable resource! 🙏 Read it here: 👉 doi.org/10.1038/s415... 🧵 Dive into SPRINTER's work: 👉 bsky.app/profile/zacc...
Qian Du@qianxidu.bsky.social · 2y agoSingle cell genomics was a breakthrough in understanding cancer heterogeneity. Incredible work by Lucas et al. in breaking the next barrier, cancer proliferation heterogeneity tinyurl.com/mjuuk7kt Honoured I was invited to write the News&Views. tinyurl.com/yc27a4ac Both out now in Nature Genetics!
Our paper on chromosomal abnormalities in normal breast tissue from BRCA carriers came out last week. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Luminal breast epithelial cells of BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation carriers and noncarriers harbor common breast cancer copy number alterations - Nature Genetics
Single-cell DNA sequencing identifies recurrent copy number changes in healthy breast tissue from women with wild-type or germline BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations.
nature.com
What an absolute pleasure to be collaborating with such an incredibly talented team!! SPRINTER out today in Nature Genetics 🧬
Simone Zaccaria@zaccasimo.bsky.social · 2y ago🚨So proud to present the first study from our @ccg-ucl.bsky.social group together with @charlesswanton.bsky.social @NnennayaKanu and led by @ojlucas.bsky.social with key collaboration @sophie-ward.bsky.social and fundamental support @rijazaidi.bsky.social @abibunkum.bsky.social & others Out now👇 🧵👇
A great pleasure to work with @zaccasimo.bsky.social and his team on this elegant data and tool.
Simone Zaccaria@zaccasimo.bsky.social · 2y ago🚨So proud to present the first study from our @ccg-ucl.bsky.social group together with @charlesswanton.bsky.social @NnennayaKanu and led by @ojlucas.bsky.social with key collaboration @sophie-ward.bsky.social and fundamental support @rijazaidi.bsky.social @abibunkum.bsky.social & others Out now👇 🧵👇
Single cell genomics was a breakthrough in understanding cancer heterogeneity. Incredible work by Lucas et al. in breaking the next barrier, cancer proliferation heterogeneity tinyurl.com/mjuuk7kt Honoured I was invited to write the News&Views. tinyurl.com/yc27a4ac Both out now in Nature Genetics!
Characterizing the evolutionary dynamics of cancer proliferation in single-cell clones with SPRINTER - Nature Genetics
Single-cell Proliferation Rate Inference in Non-homogeneous Tumors through Evolutionary Routes (SPRINTER) allows users to infer proliferation rates of individual clones within a tumor from single-cell...
tinyurl.com
