How Changes in Gene Expression Affect Phenotypes and Clinical Outcomes for Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Public project summary

Cancer is a disease caused by the uncontrolled division of cells in a part of the body. In general, cancers arise as a result of DNA changes in the genomes of cancer cells. Genes encode proteins, and proteins then dictate cell function. The genes that are “expressed,” or turned on, in a particular cell determine what that cell can do. As a result, one possible cause of head and neck cancer, a subtype of cancer, is differences in gene expression levels between patients with cancer and patients without cancer. This research project will analyze gene expression data from head and neck cancer patients using the Seurat package in the programming language R to identify marker genes that can later be suppressed with gene editing technology.