Modelling changes in genomic network structure during development and oncogenesis

我的项目是高度跨学科的，这意味着我与数学和生物科学的专家密切合作，研究这两个领域的前沿课题。我研究统计网络模型，这基本上是对离散实体之间互动模式的数学描述，比如Facebook上的朋友，或者在我的研究中，人类基因。你身体里的每个细胞都有相同的一组基因，但你手指末端的细胞和你大脑中的细胞看起来非常不同的原因是，与大脑相比，手指上的基因组是不同的。换句话说，我们有一组特定于手指的基因，和一组特定于大脑的基因，通过在适当的时候打开和关闭这些基因，细胞就能获得与它在体内位置相对应的正确的物理特征。这种基因的开启和关闭本身是由其他基因的影响控制的。Facebook上的朋友自然地聚集在一起，相互作用和影响的基因也是如此。就像友谊群体可以随着时间的推移而改变和发展一样，这些相互作用的基因群体也可以。因此，当这些基因组在生物体中发生变化时，通常会反映在一些物理变化上，这些变化可能是健康的（例如自然生长），也可能是不健康的（例如非自然生长，如癌症）。我的研究重点是理解这样的机制，即基因如何控制大脑的健康生长，以及这种健康生长与癌症的不健康生长之间的密切联系。我们希望通过更好地了解这些健康机制，我们也可以揭示这些致命疾病。因此，更多地了解这些由我们的基因控制的微观机制本身就非常有趣，但它也可以帮助我们更多地了解严重的疾病。

My project is highly interdisciplinary, which means that I work closely with specialists in both the mathematical and biological sciences, researching topics at the cutting edge of both fields. I work on statistical network models, which are basically mathematical descriptions of patterns of interactions between discrete entities such as friends on Facebook, or in my research, human genes.Every cell in your body has the same set of genes - but the reason that a cell on the end of your finger looks very different to a cell in your brain is that different sets of genes are switched on and off in the finger compared to the brain. In other words, we have a set of finger-specific genes, and a set of brain-specific genes, and by switching these genes on and off at the right time the cell is able to gain the correct physical characteristics for its location in the body. This switching on and off of genes is itself controlled by the influence of other genes.Friends on Facebook group together naturally, and so do genes which interact with and influence each other. Just as friendship groups can change and develop over time, so can these interacting groups of genes. So when these gene groupings change in an organism, it's often reflected in some physical change, which might be healthy (for example natural growth), or unhealthy (for example unnatural growth, like cancer).My research is particularly focused on understanding mechanisms like these, by which genes control healthy growth in the brain, and on the close connections between this sort of healthy growth, and unhealthy growth in cancer. We hope that by understanding these healthy mechanisms better, we can also shed light on these deadly diseases. So understanding more about these microscopic mechanisms controlled by our genes is very interesting in itself, but it can also help us to understand more about serious illnesses.