Evolving Diseases: Immunogenomics, Cancer and Infections

Unlike engineered systems, biological systems can react to perturbations, adapt and evolve. Cancer, immune-mediated and inflammatory conditions are often defined as “evolving diseases” due to their capacity to evolve and progress over time. These diseases represent an enormous health and economic burden.

In collaboration with Italian and foreign hospitals, HT researchers will investigate the molecular basis of evolving diseases. They will perform population-scale multi-omic studies, investigate rare autoimmune diseases and apply machine learning techniques to infer cellular and disease mechanisms from imaging and molecular data. Mathematical and biophysical modelling will allow them to identify cancer vulnerabilities, investigate the evolution of antibiotic resistance in bacteria and find parallels with cancer drug resistance.