Team eDyNAmiC: Following the science and accelerating our understanding of ecDNA
The story of eDyNAmiC and the team’s three papers, published back-to-back in Nature.
A milestone moment for team eDyNAmiC
Revolutionsing our understanding of ecDNA
In 2020 Cancer Grand Challenges set the extrachromosomal DNA challenge, and in 2022 funded team eDyNAmiC. Today, 6 November 2024, the team together with their international collaborators published three papers back-to-back in Nature: Origins and impact of extrachromosomal DNA, Coordinated inheritance of extrachromosomal DNAs in cancer cells and Enhancing transcription–replication conflict targets ecDNA-positive cancers.
To mark this moment, we detailed eDyNAmiC's journey so far and took a deep dive into these papers, which demonstrate the prevalence and importance of ecDNA in cancer, and go all the way from fundamental mechanisms through to identifying an actionable target that's already being tested in the clinic. In addition, we spoke to eDyNAmiC future leader Chris Bailey about what he's learned from patients in his research. Read more below.
We're also very excited to announce the first edition of the Cancer Grand Challenges Conference Series, which will be the first conference focused on ecDNA and take place in London in June 2025. Paul Mischel (team lead of eDyNAmiC), Howard Chang and Mariam Jamal-Hanjani are amongst the organising committee, and will be presenting their work, with a stellar line-up of speakers already confirmed. Registration is now open.
And the research continues at pace
On 18 December 2024, eDyNAmiC and its collaborators published another paper in Nature: Engineered extrachromosomal oncogene amplifications promote tumorigenesis.
This work, led by Andrea Ventura, provides important tools to precisely generate ecDNA and demonstrates the ability of ecDNA to drive tumour formation. In this article, we detail how Andrea came to work on ecDNA as well as the implications and potential use of this inventive system.
Plain language summmaries
Below, you'll find plain language summaries of the papers, co-developed by the team eDyNAmiC patient advocates:
- Origins and impact of extrachromosomal DNA plain language summary
- Coordinated inheritance of extrachromosomal DNAs in cancer cells plain language summary
- Enhancing transcription–replication conflict targets ecDNA-positive cancers plain language summary
- Engineered extrachromosomal oncogene amplifications promote tumorigenesis plain language summary
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Through Cancer Grand Challenges team eDyNAmiC is funded by Cancer Research UK and the National Cancer Institute, with generous support to Cancer Research UK from Emerson Collective and The Kamini and Vindi Banga Family Trust.
Hero image: Artistic visualisation of extrachromosomal DNA. The large, purple rod-shaped object is a chromosome. The smaller orange-red circles are the extrachromosomal DNA. Credit: Jeroen Claus