Noor Kherreh

Short description of my research project:

In this project, we are aiming to focus on two problems:

• Computational methods and tools for immune receptor data
• Analysis of genomics data

We will adapt methods from molecular evolution and population genetics to estimate the selection coefficient from longitudinal data consisting of T cell Receptor clonotype frequencies. The change in frequency of a certain TCR clonotype over the period maybe just by chance or maybe due to selection (i.e., the preferential expansion of the clonotype). For a given clonotype, the selection coefficients will be estimated to investigate the extent to which selection has influenced the increase or decrease in the frequency of the clonotype between the time points. We will be developing a computational tool that enables this estimation to be carried out.

The 2nd problem is focused on the analysis of genomics data, more precisely on the study of the relationship between genetic variants in the patient immune system and the somatic mutations observed in cancer. We will investigate whether immune responses play a role in determining the somatic mutations that are observed, and if so, to what extent? We will try to shed light on the interaction between lymphocytes and healthy cells by examining the distribution of non-synonymous sequence changes among passenger mutations in cancer samples (i.e., mutations that occurred prior to cancer transformation).