Simone Zaccaria

🚨So proud to present the first study from our @ccg-ucl.bsky.social group together with @charlesswanton.bsky.social @NnennayaKanu and led by @ojlucas.bsky.social with key collaboration @sophie-ward.bsky.social and fundamental support @rijazaidi.bsky.social @abibunkum.bsky.social & others Out now👇 🧵👇

⏳ Just 2 weeks left to apply! Know a prospective PhD student of Black heritage excited by single-cell genomics, AI & cancer evolution? 🧬 Join us to uncover how ecDNA helps tumours shapeshift & beat therapy, through the CRUK Black Leaders in Cancer Programme Please share 🙏👇

🚨 PhD opportunity at @ccg-ucl.bsky.social! Build AI & computational tools to catch ecDNA in single cells: rogue DNA circles that let cancer beat therapy With @jamal-hanjani-lab.bsky.social & @benjaminwerner.bsky.social Black Leaders in Cancer PhD at UCL CI 👇 www.colcc.ac.uk/2027-blic-ph...

Excited to be at @myesmo.bsky.social 2026! Had a great session discussing key concepts and their application to the clinic with @nickymcgranahan.bsky.social @ewaszczurek.bsky.social @zaccasimo.bsky.social & Geoff Macintyre! Join @saezlab.bsky.social & me tomorrow to discuss multiomics @2:45pm!

Huge congrats, Mariam @jamal-hanjani-lab.bsky.social!🎉 So well deserved. Having had the privilege of working closely with you, I know firsthand the vision, energy and collaborative spirit you bring. I have no doubt you will have an enormously positive impact on @cancerresearchuk.org & on all of us 🎉

We’re pleased to announce Professor Mariam Jamal-Hanjani as our new Chief Clinician! 🎉 Mariam is Professor of Cancer Genomics and Metastasis at UCL Cancer Institute and has led on a number of our key research initiatives. Join us in welcoming her to the role! cruk.ink/4jGWABC

Join us In London for #MAP2026 to think how we can shape the next generation of molecular precision oncology! #esmomeetings 👇

In colon, stem cells divide & so do the crypts they reside in: a multi-level evolutionary process. D Mallo, P Bousquets @heathergrant.bsky.social @calumgabbutt.bsky.social have made "PhyPhum" to lineage trace somatic evolution in human glandular tissues www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... @icr.ac.uk

🚨 Huge honour to have helped supervise this landmark PEACE study! New insights into metastasis + a unique dataset of unprecedented resolution on metastatic evolution and dissemination that we hope will drive future advances. 🙏 @cancerresearchuk.org @uclhresearch.bsky.social Please take a look 👇

Using MACHINA from @braphael.bsky.social's lab to infer metastatic migration patterns, we found that NSCLC primaries had multiple seeding subclones more often than a single seeding subclone. 4/9

Through the integration of the #PEACE autopsy programme, which allows high breadth metastasis sampling, with the #TRACERx lung study, we collected and studied 501 primary and metastatic tumour samples from 24 patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) enrolled in the both studies. 2/9

Excited to share our ‘Evolutionary characterization of lung cancer metastasis’ in #TRACERx & #PEACE, published today in @nature.com in collaboration with @charlesswanton.bsky.social @nickymcgranahan.bsky.social @zaccasimo.bsky.social at @ucl.ac.uk & @crick.ac.uk. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We held the first #CANPOP symposium today (cancer population genetics club) @icr.ac.uk. 6 excellent & didactic talks, all applying mathematical #popgen theory to dissect somatic evolutionary dynamics: spanning the full range of pre-cancer, metastasis through to 6000 year old transmissible cancer...

New @natgenet.nature.com paper from the brilliant @eszterlakatos.bsky.social presents evidence that chromatin alterations disrupt antigen presentation & neoantigens in colorectal cancer. Also that immune escape is part of the "Big Bang", at the outset of CRC growth. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Big, beautiful trees!! SMART-PTA for whole-genome+transcriptome on thousand of single cells from the normal human esophagus 🤯 Massively scaling up the power of scWGS to build deep phylogenies and chart somatic evolution from birth throughout life. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Huge congratulations to the lead applicants to our Development Fund 2025 on their innovative ideas! 👏 Özgen Deniz; Jonathan Fisher; Paul Grevitt; Jit Sarkar; Adam C Sedgwick; Emmanouil Stylianakis; and @zaccasimo.bsky.social 🎉 Find out more about their projects here: www.colcc.ac.uk/development-...

Studying cancer evolution needs multi-region or single cell seq for phylogenetics, right? Amazingly (I think!) we found single-sample bulk methylation suffices, via analysis of "fluctuating methylation". In @nature.com today led by brilliant @calumgabbutt.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🧨Exciting new pre-print 🧨 Introducing ppmSeq - cost effective, scalable dual-strand 🧬🧬 sequencing. Scalability & ultra-low error in one! A game changer for somatic genome discovery science and cfDNA clinical apps. Check out thread for deets!

🚨 We're hiring a sequencing technician in #TRACERx! Join world-leading teams at @TheCrick & @uclcancer, working at the forefront of cancer research. Want to apply cutting-edge genomic tech to understand cancer evolution? Apply now! 👉 www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/... #Genomics #CancerResearch

1 in 2 people will get cancer in their lifetime. Our team'll still run @cancerresearchuk.org Muddy Race also this May to highlight the importance of funding cancer research and improving patient outcomes Please support us if you can! #RaceforLife 👉 fundraise.cancerresearchuk.org/team/computa...

Not only are you a brilliant PI and an incredible mother, but you’re also a role model for women in science. Your strength and dedication inspire us all!

I'm attending #ISMBECCB2025 in Liverpool, United Kingdom from July 20-24. Who else is going? Register here and don't miss it! invt.io/1bxbyktm0wq

Huge congratulations to now PhD @alexsteinresearch.bsky.social and supervisor @benjaminwerner.bsky.social , well deserved! It has been a pleasure to listening to and discussing such a great amount of work and how it all came together

To what extent is cancer development deterministic and predictable..? Does the germline genome affect that predictability...? Preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

A big moment for our Centre - the first algorithm to identify cells responsible for aggressive tumour growth. SPRINTER can measure proliferation of distinct clones within the same tumour, using DNA sequencing data. This could facilitate better prediction of cancer progression, informing treatment.

How much do algorithmic and experimental choices drive the accuracy of reconstructing tumour evolution? In this Cancer Research commentary, @zaccasimo.bsky.social and I discuss a recent Nature Biotech benchmarking paper exploring this question: bit.ly/3VAMRQs

🚨 Very proud of this commentary led by @rijazaidi.bsky.social reasoning on the impact of methods and experimental design on cancer evolution understanding, motivated by the outstanding work of @TheBoutros, @VanLooLab, @kellrott et al Original work 👉 doi.org/10.1038/s415... Our Commentary 👇

Reposting this list of #cancer #evolution scientists, in case its useful for the many newcomers.

So proud that our paper introducing SPRINTER to characterise clone proliferation through cancer evolution is out in Nature Genetics!

🎉 Hugely honoured & happy to be selected for the @embopress.org EMBO Young Investigator Programme 2024! Exciting opportunity for our group @ccg-ucl.bsky.social & grateful for the support of @uclofficial.bsky.social @uclnews.bsky.social & funders @cancerresearchuk.org www.embo.org/press-releas...

We are so grateful to @qianxidu.bsky.social for this outstanding News&Views piece highlighting our recent SPRINTER work and framing it so beautifully within the literature. A truly valuable resource! 🙏 Read it here: 👉 doi.org/10.1038/s415... 🧵 Dive into SPRINTER's work: 👉 bsky.app/profile/zacc...

Our paper on chromosomal abnormalities in normal breast tissue from BRCA carriers came out last week. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

What an absolute pleasure to be collaborating with such an incredibly talented team!! SPRINTER out today in Nature Genetics 🧬

A great pleasure to work with @zaccasimo.bsky.social and his team on this elegant data and tool.

Single cell genomics was a breakthrough in understanding cancer heterogeneity. Incredible work by Lucas et al. in breaking the next barrier, cancer proliferation heterogeneity tinyurl.com/mjuuk7kt Honoured I was invited to write the News&Views. tinyurl.com/yc27a4ac Both out now in Nature Genetics!