With our analyses, we significantly support the INFORM program, an international project to create personalized molecular tumor profiles for children with recurrent or refractory tumors. By analyzing the tumor data, we identify molecular changes that may represent potential targets for a given drug and therefore may help treating physicians to find tailored therapies for the young patient.

As part of a European initiative (ITCC-P4), which aims at developing a preclinical platform for solid pediatric cancer types, our group is involved in the bioinformatic analysis and research. To better predict therapeutic efficacy in vivo, patient-derived xenograft models (PDXs), organoids, and mouse models for preclinical testing are being developed and utilized. Using molecular data based on high-throughput sequencing, we create molecular profiles and comparisons of the (epi-)genetic changes in patient material and the different models. Additionally, we are interested in uncovering the molecular mechanisms and biomarkers that enable response to therapy. Furthermore, we are interested in the question of how tumor cells can adapt to therapy and thereby become resistant.

Our group is also particularly interested in understanding genetic alterations associated with cancer predisposition and we have several large scale efforts both internally and in collaboration with other institutions directed towards this. These studies aim to identify novel pediatric predisposition genes, understand the effect adult type predisposition genes have in pediatric cancers and to discover ways to improve treatment approaches for patients with known DNA damage repair disorders (ADDRess) and suspected cancer predisposition syndromes (German Childhood Cancer Registry Study).

We also have projects directed towards understanding of the contribution of the tumor immune microenvironment using de-convolution methods in RNA sequencing and DNA methylation data, genomic analyses of liquid biopsy samples, analyzing and designing two-dimensional CRISPR screening experiments to uncover new synthetic lethal gene interactions in pediatric cancer cell lines.