EMBL-EBI Seminar | Máire Ní Leathlobhair, Trinity College Dublin

‘Cancer transmission via the placenta’

Abstract:

In this seminar, I will explore unusual instances of cancer cell transmission in humans, with a focus on the placenta as a specialized site of genomic conflict. These rare events can include transmission through organ donation, surgical accidents, and maternal-fetal transfer, with most occurring in the context of immune suppression. I will focus on recent work describing the transfusion of cancer clones between monochorionic twins. Additionally, I will discuss ongoing genomic analyses of rare placental tumours, which are remarkable both as cancers derived from fetal cells and as the only documented example involving serial human cancer transmission, from extraembryonic tissue to the mother and subsequently to multiple organ transplant recipients.

Finally, I’ll shift to a new direction for our group, staying within the broader theme of genomic conflict in the placenta – characterizing the functional roles of endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) in this unique environment, particularly in immunosuppression, cell fusion, and intercellular transfer. Bioinformatic matters arising will include reconstructing shared clonal histories in transmitted cancers, haplotype-resolved reconstruction in placental tumours using long-read sequencing, and identifying functional ERV elements.

Biography:

I am a PI and Assistant Professor in Biological Data Analytics at the School of Genetics and Microbiology, Trinity College Dublin. I completed undergraduate and master’s degrees in mathematics before undertaking a PhD at Cambridge on transmissible cancers. After that, I was a Junior Research Fellow at Oxford, studying cancer evolution and heterogeneity, before starting my research group in Dublin, where we now explore broader aspects of genome evolution.

Event organiser:

John Lees jlees@ebi.ac.uk

Joining instructions

Meeting ID: 993 4117 8479
Passcode: 350048

Dr. Máire Ní Leathlobhair

Assistant Professor, Microbiology

Trinity College Dublin