In this week's episode, Professor Florian Markowetz talks about his work and recent publication on chromosomal instability. Chromosomal instability is a dynamic process of DNA change, which leads to some DNA being present multiple times and some being lost altogether. Some cancers are dominated by this process of genomic disruption; ovarian, pancreatic and triple-negative breast cancer for example. These chaotic DNA changes mean that there are not good biomarkers present to guide treatment decisions. Florian's laboratory has found a structure underlying chromosomal instability and has identified genomic fingerprints which enable them to read out the fundamental reasons for the DNA changes.

Florian is a group leader at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute at the University of Cambridge, UK.