Abstract

Unfortunately this event has now been cancelled. We hope to rearrange the talk in autumn 2022. The Early Cancer Institute is delighted to welcome Dr Andrew Erickson to give a talk to our staff, members and wider network: Please register at www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/362960002137 Defining the transition from benign to malignant tissue is fundamental to improve early diagnosis of cancer. We used a systematic approach to study spatial genome integrity in situ and describe previously unidentified clonal relationships. We employed spatially resolved transcriptomics to infer spatial copy number variations in >120,000 regions across multiple organs, in benign and malignant tissues. We demonstrate that genome-wide copy number variation reveals distinct clonal patterns within tumours and in nearby benign tissue using an organ-wide approach focused on the prostate. Our results suggest a model for how genomic instability arises in histologically benign tissue that may represent early events in cancer evolution. We highlight the power of capturing the molecular and spatial continuums in a tissue context and challenge the rationale for treatment paradigms, including focal therapy. Pre-print: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.12.452018v1