Nick Kinney

Background

About Nick Kinney

My major research interest is the role of repetitive DNA in cancer. It is commonly thought that repetitive regions of the genome bears low information content; however, these regions may have a high information content when it comes to predicting the risk cancer. In fact, it was recently demonstrated that a type of repetitive DNA called “microsatellite DNA” correlates with breast cancer predisposition. At least 55 microsatellite loci have already been identified that distinguish breast cancer and healthy cells with sensitivity over 85%. Can this specificity by improved? Are there other microsatellite regions that can predict cancer predisposition and potentially lead to reductions in cancer incidence within the next decade? How do we better discover the predictive microsatellite regions in the human genome and what can they tell us about the biology of different cancer types? Microsatellite DNA consists of a short repeating unit, typically 1-10 base pairs, repeated in tandem to form an array. Over one million of these arrays exist in the human genome scattered within coding regions, promoters, enhancers, and non-coding regions. Interestingly, the length of a microsatellite arrays in two individuals may differ; it is thought that array length changes as cells divide though mechanisms such as strand slip replication and unequal crossing over. These differences guide forensic testing and make each person’s DNA unique. Discovering microsatellite markers of cancer within this complexity is a classic challenge in big data science.