Hannah Carter

Modern measurement techniques in biology have made it feasible to seek an understanding of how cellular behavior and fate result from coordinated molecular events within the cell. Our lab is focused on understanding mechanisms by which particular molecular changes confer neoplastic properties to tumor cells. Can we predict these changes in cell fate by observing the constellation of molecular mutations within the cell? To answer this question, we are developing computational models of how intracellular biological networks are perturbed by molecular events such as genetic mutation, DNA methylation, and post-transcriptional and post-translational modification. By modeling the combined effects of multiple molecular events on cellular behaviors we aim to identify novel early diagnostic markers of cancer and predict personalized therapeutic regimens.