Applied Bioinformatics

  • Functional and Structural Genomics
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Prof. Dr. Benedikt Brors

We use methods from computer science, bioinformatics and statistics to gain a better understanding of cancer development and progression, and improve cancer care. We use the results of our bioinformatics studies to build clinical applications that provide novel clues for cancer therapy, including targeted treatments and immunotherapies.

The image presents a heatmap comparing DNA methylation and mRNA expression across various samples. The left side illustrates varying methylation levels indicated by a color gradient, while the right side shows mRNA expression levels. Labels identify specific genes and sample characteristics.

Our Research

We are a computational group working on analysis of high-dimensional data from cancer. Most of these data are coming from sequencing-based assays, such as whole-genome sequencing, RNA sequencing, bisulfite sequencing, ATAC sequencing as well as their single-cell variants. By analyzing this data, we obtain unique insight into cancer mechanisms, evolution, progression, response to therapy and its interaction with the immune system. This helps to identify optimal, targeted therapies for each individual patient (“precision oncology”).

We develop methods and workflows that deal with massive amounts of data on distributed compute systems, including artificial intelligence technology.  Our workflows have been implemented into clinical trials at the National Center for Tumor Diseases. In addition, we contribute to clinical trials of the European Study Group for Pancreatic Cancer and the German Neuroblastoma Study Group.

We are affiliated with the National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT) and the German Cancer Consortium (DKTK). In addition, we contribute to infrastructures like the German Network of Bioinformatics Infrastructures (de.NB) and the German Human Genome-Phenome Archive (GHGA).

Projects

The Comparative Cancer Genomics team lead by Dr. Lars Feuerbach focuses on integrating sequencing and array data across tumor subtypes and patient cohorts. In these Pan-Cancer studies the similarities and differences in the interplay of epigenome, genome and transcriptome during carciogenesis are investigated in context of three main interests:

Focus 1 - Replicative Immortality and telomere biology in cancer

Focus 2 - Identification of regulatory cancer driver mutations for precision oncology applications

Focus 3 - Software tool development for the analysis of cancer cohorts

Furthermore, following up on the ICGC Early-onset Prostate Cancer consortium, we study prostate cancer as part of the Pan Prostate Cancer group of the ICGC ARGO project.

Our methodological expertise for computational cancer genome analysis comprises algorithm development, specialized datastructures for multi-omics data integration, data mining by machine learning, compact visualization of complex information, and statistical modeling.

 

Team

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    Prof. Dr. Benedikt Brors

    Head of Division

    Show profile
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    Dr. Lars Feuerbach

    Team Leader Comparative Cancer Genomics

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    Dr. Sadaf Shabbir Mughal

    Team Leader Tumor Heterogeneity and Evolution

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    Dr. Charles Vomfelde genannt Imbusch

    Team Leader Computational Oncoimmunology

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    Dr. Oscar Gonzalez Velasco

    Postdoctoral Researcher

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    Dr. Siao-Han Wong

    Postdoctoral Researcher

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    Dr. Evgeniya Denisova

    Postdoctoral Researcher

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    Farhad Faghihi

    Doctoral Student

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    Karina Martinez

    Doctoral Student

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    Julia Münch

    Doctoral Student

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    Ferdinand Popp

    Doctoral Student

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    Silja Schlue

    Doctoral Student

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    Lenart Zezlina

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    Prof. Dr. Ezekiel Femi Adebiyi

    Guest Scientist

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    Corinna Sprengart

    Administrative Assistant

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    Hans Bartelmeß

    System Administrator

Entire Team

Selected Publications

2024 - Immunity 57(8):1975-1993.e10.
2021 - Cancer Discov. 11(11):2780-2795

Comprehensive Genomic and Transcriptomic Analysis for Guiding Therapeutic Decisions in Patients with Rare Cancers

2020 - Nature.578(7793):82-93

Pan-cancer analysis of whole genomes

2020 - Nat Commun.11(1):733

Genomic footprints of activated telomere maintenance mechanisms in cancer

2018 - Nat Commun 9(1):144
All Publications

Get in touch with us

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Corinna Sprengart

Sekretariat
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Prof. Dr. Benedikt Brors

Abteilungsleitung
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