Janessa Laskin from Canada’s Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre at BC Cancer presented at London Calling 2023 on the “Potential use of nanopore sequencing in clinical cancer genomics.” Laskin is a clinician and medical oncologist. They spoke about the uncertainty of what treatments to select for patients and the idea of personalized medicine. Laskin explained that technology has revealed that cancer is “a disease of the genome” and they developed in collaboration “a Personalized OncoGenomics (POG).” The group takes biopsies and does whole genome sequencing since 2012. They meet twice a week to discuss data and cases. The group focuses on advanced and “incurable” cancers, feeding information back into the cycle of improvement. POG has sequenced about a thousand adult genomes and over two hundred pediatric cases. In 83% of cases, the findings are “clinically actionable.” Short read sequencing has been used for over a decade, and the group has introduced a Nanopore sequencing sub-project. Laskin presented some data. The group looks at Nanopore methylation data to learn how tumors cluster. The group is also analyzing homologous recombinant deficiency (HRD). Germline interpretation can be improved with use of long-read sequencing for structural variants. The group continues to expand patient cohorts, collaborations, and data sharing. Laskin is the clinical lead and mentioned increasing trials with Nanopore sequencing for HRD, methylation, and structural variant analysis of cancer samples. This session was informative and provides examples and ideas that can be used in a variety of samples.
