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, high-grade glioma, and medulloblastoma. These diseases pose significant challenges for effective therapies due to their high heterogeneity, with over a hundred molecular subtypes, somatic drivers unique to childhood malignancies, and genetic tumour syndromes.
The Laboratory of Computational Neuro-Oncology at EPFL focuses on developing novel technologies for faster, minimally invasive, and more comprehensive molecular diagnostics of brain tumours. Our mission is to optimize therapeutic decision-making by providing real-time molecular information into tumours and microenvironments in children and young adults.
Our specific research interests are:
- Cell-free genomics: to develop computational methods for longitudinal monitoring of brain tumors with cell-free whole genome sequencing of CSF/plasma.
- Spatial genomics: to advance brain tumour diagnostics at the single-cell and tissue level based on massively parallel hyperplex imaging, label-free imaging, and AI-driven computer vision.
- Cancer genomics: to study the genetic and genomic landscape of pediatric gliomas and to discover molecular biomarkers that predict response to combinatorial treatment in preclinical models and in clinical trials.