Elena Grassi

There's not long left for you to submit your abstract for our Overactivation of Oncogenic Signalling as a Potential Cancer Treatment Strategy conference!

If your research falls into any of these categories, don't miss your opportunity to be included in this conference:

eacr.org/conference/o...

The largest free and open source developers meeting in Europe in 2026 will have a Bioinformatics/Computational Biology devroom! If you want to be among the first presenting there here's the CfP: fosdem-bioinformatics.github.io/cfp.html @fosdem.bsky.social

Still it's mainly a targeted panel, so the limits begin there. They briefly discuss some promoters-introns muts... I think also signature analysis is limited by this - honestly unsure about the cost to expand seriously on this...

Doubt it, but still wtf...

Sex and smoking bias in the selection of somatic mutations in human bladder - Nature Sex bias and association with smoking history identified in the landscape of driver mutations and clonal expansions in normal human bladder tissue may explain the higher bladder cancer risk in men and smokers.

🚨 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)

Now online in Cancer Discovery @aacrjournals.bsky.social: The Molecular and Functional Landscape of Resistance to FOLFIRI Chemotherapy in Metastatic Colorectal Cancer - by Marco Avolio, Simonetta Leto, Andrea Bertotti, Livio Trusolino, and colleagues doi.org/10.1158/2159...

Heads up: ignore samtools dot org, similarly minimap2 dot com and likely others. It's owned by a known phishing site and while the binaries they offer look valid currently (but note they may be serving us different binaries to others), that could change.

Ie: it's not us (Samtools team)! Be warned

Proud of Sofia who is presenting our fight vs scRNA with GNN and GRN at CIBB2025.

The Many Faces of Cancer Evolution Cancer evolution is a multi-faceted process and a major clinical challenge. Indeed, tumors constantly change as they progress through multiple mechanisms, the understanding of which is critical to an…

Finally, we are OPEN! meetings.embo.org/event/26-can.... You dont' want to miss this one. Capped at 180 partecipants, so register super early to avoid disappointment. Amazing speakers, incredible location and the best vibe. Come to learn, share, discuss and enjoy some of the most exciting ideas.

The Many Faces of Cancer Evolution Cancer evolution is a multi-faceted process and a major clinical challenge. Indeed, tumors constantly change as they progress through multiple mechanisms, the understanding of which is critical to an…

🚀 WE'RE BACK! "The Many Faces of Cancer Evolution" is coming back to Rimini on May 27-29, 2026! meetings.embo.org/event/26-can... Join me, Luca @magnanilab.bsky.social , Celine Vallot, and Samra @turajliclab.bsky.social for 3 days of amazing science on the beach! @embo.org meeting #cancer 👇👇

Stay connected during #BITS2025!
Use the hashtag and tag us in your posts 🧬

We’re on:
🔹 X → x.com/BITS_bioinf
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Heterogeneity and evolution of DNA mutation rates in microsatellite stable colorectal cancer Tumors with chromosomal instability accrue DNA sequence mutations at highly variable rates, which increase during metastatic progression.

(7/7) If you want to know more about how we measured MRs, compared them with computationally inferred ones and validated our results thanks to the Genomics England Research Network: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
@sottoriva.bsky.social @genomicsengland.bsky.social

(6/7) Our data suggest tumors evolve toward higher mutation rates over time - this will impact how drug response and resistance are modelled. Moreover shifts in mutational signatures before vs after tumor initiation may offer a way to 'carbon-date' tumors.

(5/7) We also discovered that the mutational processes at play during cancer growth are different from the ones in normal cells - the mutational signatures detected during the accumulation period are different from the ones seen in bulk tumors.

(4/7) It turned out each tumor has its own specific MR and the differences in MRs among MSS tumors are as large as the ones between MSS and MSI. Moreover, earlier lesions have lower mutation rates than later ones of the same patient.

(3/7) Using colorectal cancer clonal organoids we set up a Mutation Accumulation experiment, where we performed a WGS at the beginning and the end of six months of growth and identified the newly accumulated mutations.

(2/7) We decided to directly measure the Mutation Rate (MR) in colorectal tumors, to understand if MSS tumors really do accumulate few SNVs at homogeneous rates and check whether in silico models that estimate MR are trustworthy.

(1/7) Our paper on how fast colorectal tumors accumulate mutations is finally out (and on the STM cover! @science.org )

openSNP crowdsourcing genome wide association studies

This is pretty depressing - why OpenSNP, a company with a data-centric belief that genetic data would be a key driver for improving human health and medicine, will close (and delete all of its data) opensnp.wordpress.com. Turns out the biggest users were law enforcement and govt, not labs or pharma.

The Woodstock of Biology 2 + Nightscience conference is going to be out of this world.
#theconferencetoendallconferences - Register NOW while it's still possible: woodstock.img.cas.cz

Genetic properties underlying transcriptional variability across different perturbations - Nature Communications Organisms display non-uniform transcriptional variability in response to genetic and environmental perturbations. This study on Escherichia coli reveals how gene regulatory networks shape transcriptio...

Weekly read: www.nature.com/articles/s41... lessons on phenotypic evolution, genetically or environmentally driven, from E.Coli.

Friends! The science that we love is under threat. World-wide, there're forces seeking to make it corporate-like, focused on deliverables, or even the enemy of society. Take a stand & celebrate science & music! #theconferencetoendallconferences - Registration starts NOW!
woodstock.img.cas.cz

Evolution Evolving A new account of the central role developmental processes play in evolution

I really enjoy reading "Evolution Evolving", really mind-opening and beautifully written
press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...
@kevinlala.bsky.social

What a fantastic conference we’ve had this week in Lyon, shining the spotlight on the rapidly evolving area of research that is cancer persister cells. Thank you to all participants, speakers and our wonderful Scientific Programme Committee 🤩

Evolutionary fingerprints of epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition - Nature Malignant cells with mesenchymal features display increased chromatin accessibility, particularly in the pericentromeric and centromeric regions, in turn resulting in delayed mitosis and catastrophic ...

Weekly read: www.nature.com/articles/s41... - about the role of EMT in PDAC het-evol and (another) evidence of cell-state-specific mutational processes.

Before (beer to fuel the body) and after (climb to destroy it) a super intensive conference on cancer/bacterial persisters. Lots of interesting talks, interactive sessions and fruitful posters discussions. @helloeacr.bsky.social