Brain tumours are the leading cause of cancer-related death in children and young adults. The most common and devastating types include diffuse midline glioma, diffuse hemispheric glioma, and medulloblastoma. These diseases pose significant challenges for targeted therapy due to high molecular heterogeneity within and between patients and with over 150 molecular brain tumour subtypes, complex landscapes of somatic driver alterations, and genetic tumour syndromes.
The EPFL Laboratory of Computational Neuro-Oncology aims to advance diagnostics in pediatric neuro-oncology based on novel technologies and computational methods, to optimize therapeutic decision-making with real-time data in early-phase clinical trials, and identify molecular mechanisms of glioma development in children and young adults.
Our specific research interests are:
- Digital neuropathology: to advance molecular diagnostics of pediatric brain tumours based on AI/ML, spatial molecular profiling, and SRS-based label-free chemical imaging.
- Cell-free cancer genomics: to develop computational methods for multi-modal and longitudinal monitoring of brain tumour genomes using cell-free DNA whole genome sequencing.
- Clinical cancer genomics: to study the genomic landscape of pediatric-type gliomas and infer response to targeted therapies within early-phase clinical trials.