Nicholas Navin
Associate Professor
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Departments of Genetics and Bioinformatics and Computational Biology
My lab is interested in applying biological experimentation and analytical methods to understanding human cancer progression and tumor heterogeneity. Recently, I have developed a single cell genomic method to profile individual tumor cells and compare multiple cells to infer patterns of genome evolution. These methods have the capacity to resolve complex mixtures of cells such as solid tumors, where genetic heterogeneity is common. Assuming that mutational complexity increases with time, we can use analytical methods to reconstruct evolutionary lineages from the genomic profiles and infer the relative chronology of mutations. The efforts of my lab are split evenly between biological methods, including next-generation sequencing, cytological techniques and human cell culture systems, and developing analytical methods in perl, python R, splus and C++ to analyze large-scale genomic datasets.
A tutorial in my laboratory would include learning experimental methods such as next-generation sequencing, laser-capture-microdissection, flow-sorting and cytology, as well as learning analytical skills to write programs for analyzing and visualizing large-scale genomic datasets.
Education & Training
Ph.D. - Stony Brook University and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory - 2010
Research Info
single cell genomics; tumor heterogeneity; genome evolution