Principal Investigator: Nikolaus Schultz

Cancer Genomics

The Schultz lab focuses on identifying the genomic alterations that underlie different types of cancer. By applying existing and novel computational methods to large scale cancer genomics data sets, the lab aims to better understand the complex mechanisms at the gene and at the pathway level that drive tumor initiation, progression and response to therapy, with the ultimate goal of identifying targeted therapeutic options for cancer patients. A new focus of the lab is the systematic extraction and standardization of clinical data elements from electronic health records. The lab is also involved in collaborative large-scale projects such as The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA),  AACR Project GENIE, and the Human Tumor Atlas (HTAN). The group also has a strong interest in enabling discoveries by developing novel computational methods and databases that help bridge the divide between computer scientists on one side and clinicians and researchers on the other. Examples of these include the cBioPortal for Cancer Genomics, a popular resource for the visualization and analysis of cancer genomics data, and OncoKB, a precision oncology knowledgebase.

View available career opportunities in the lab here.

Recent Publications

Chatila WK, Kim JK, Walch H, Marco MR, Chen CT, Wu F, Omer DM, Khalil DN, Ganesh K, Qu X, Luthra A, Choi SH, Ho YJ, Kundra R, Groves KI, Chow OS, Cercek A, Weiser MR, Widmar M, Wei IH, Pappou EP, Nash GM, Paty PB, Shi Q, Vakiani E, Duygu Selcuklu S, Donoghue MTA, Solit DB, Berger MF, Shia J, Pelossof R, Romesser PB, Yaeger R, Smith JJ, Schultz N, Sanchez-Vega F, Garcia-Aguilar J. Genomic and transcriptomic determinants of response to neoadjuvant therapy in rectal cancer. Nat Med. 2022 Aug;28(8):1646–1655. PMID: 35970919

Choi J, Holowatyj AN, Du M, Chen Z, Wen W, Schultz N, Lipworth L, Guo X. Distinct Genomic Landscapes in Early-Onset and Late-Onset Endometrial Cancer. JCO Precis Oncol. 2022 Feb;6:e2100401. PMCID: PMC8820918

Nguyen B, Fong C, Luthra A, Smith SA, DiNatale RG, Nandakumar S, Walch H, Chatila WK, Madupuri R, Kundra R, Bielski CM, Mastrogiacomo B, Donoghue MTA, Boire A, Chandarlapaty S, Ganesh K, Harding JJ, Iacobuzio-Donahue CA, Razavi P, Reznik E, Rudin CM, Zamarin D, Abida W, Abou-Alfa GK, Aghajanian C, Cercek A, Chi P, Feldman D, Ho AL, Iyer G, Janjigian YY, Morris M, Motzer RJ, O’Reilly EM, Postow MA, Raj NP, Riely GJ, Robson ME, Rosenberg JE, Safonov A, Shoushtari AN, Tap W, Teo MY, Varghese AM, Voss M, Yaeger R, Zauderer MG, Abu-Rustum N, Garcia-Aguilar J, Bochner B, Hakimi A, Jarnagin WR, Jones DR, Molena D, Morris L, Rios-Doria E, Russo P, Singer S, Strong VE, Chakravarty D, Ellenson LH, Gopalan A, Reis-Filho JS, Weigelt B, Ladanyi M, Gonen M, Shah SP, Massague J, Gao J, Zehir A, Berger MF, Solit DB, Bakhoum SF, Sanchez-Vega F, Schultz N. Genomic characterization of metastatic patterns from prospective clinical sequencing of 25,000 patients. Cell. 2022 Feb 3;185(3):563–575.e11. PMID: 35120664

Cercek A, Chatila WK, Yaeger R, Walch H, Fernandes GDS, Krishnan A, Palmaira L, Maio A, Kemel Y, Srinivasan P, Bandlamudi C, Salo-Mullen E, Tejada PR, Belanfanti K, Galle J, Joseph V, Segal N, Varghese A, Reidy-Lagunes D, Shia J, Vakiani E, Mondaca S, Mendelsohn R, Lumish MA, Steinruecke F, Kemeny N, Connell L, Ganesh K, Markowitz A, Nash G, Guillem J, Smith JJ, Paty PB, Zhang L, Mandelker D, Birsoy O, Robson M, Offit K, Taylor B, Berger M, Solit D, Weiser M, Saltz LB, Aguilar JG, Schultz N, Diaz LA, Stadler ZK. A Comprehensive Comparison of Early-Onset and Average-Onset Colorectal Cancers. J Natl Cancer Inst 2021 Aug 18; doi.org/10.1093/jnci/djab124 PMID: 34405229. PMC8634406.

Fiala EM, Jayakumaran G, Mauguen A, Kennedy JA, Bouvier N, Kemel Y, Fleischut MH, Maio A, Salo-Mullen EE, Sheehan M, Arnold AG, Latham A, Carlo MI, Cadoo K, Murkherjee S, Slotkin EK, Trippett T, Glade Bender J, Meyers PA, Wexler L, Dela Cruz FS, Cheung NK, Basu E, Kentsis A, Ortiz M, Francis JH, Dunkel IJ, Khakoo Y, Gilheeney S, Farouk Sait S, Forlenza CJ, Sulis M, Karajannis M, Modak S, Gerstle JT, Heaton TE, Roberts S, Yang C, Jairam S, Vijai J, Topka S, Friedman DN, Stadler ZK, Robson M, Berger MF, Schultz N, Ladanyi M, O’Reilly RJ, Abramson DH, Ceyhan-Birsoy O, Zhang L, Mandelker D, Shukla NN, Kung AL, Offit K, Zehir A, Walsh MF. Prospective pan-cancer germline testing using MSK-IMPACT informs clinical translation in 751 patients with pediatric solid tumors. Nat Cancer. 2021 Mar;2:357–365. PMCID: PMC8294573

Kundra R, Zhang H, Sheridan R, Sirintrapun SJ, Wang A, Ochoa A, Wilson M, Gross B, Sun Y, Madupuri R, Satravada BA, Reales D, Vakiani E, Al-Ahmadie HA, Dogan A, Arcila M, Zehir A, Maron S, Berger MF, Viaplana C, Janeway K, Ducar M, Sholl L, Dogan S, Bedard P, Surrey LF, Sanchez IH, Syed A, Rema AB, Chakravarty D, Suehnholz S, Nissan M, Iyer GV, Murali R, Bouvier N, Soslow RA, Hyman D, Younes A, Intlekofer A, Harding JJ, Carvajal RD, Sabbatini PJ, Abou-Alfa GK, Morris L, Janjigian YY, Gallagher MM, Soumerai TA, Mellinghoff IK, Hakimi AA, Fury M, Huse JT, Bagrodia A, Hameed M, Thomas S, Gardos S, Cerami E, Mazor T, Kumari P, Raman P, Shivdasani P, MacFarland S, Newman S, Waanders A, Gao J, Solit D, Schultz N. OncoTree: A Cancer Classification System for Precision Oncology. JCO Clin Cancer Inform. 2021 Feb;5:221–230. PMCID: PMC8240791

Nguyen B, Sanchez-Vega F, Fong CJ, Chatila WK, Boroujeni AM, Pareja F, Weigelt B, Sotiriou C, Larsimont D, Reis-Filho JS, Desmedt C, Schultz N. The genomic landscape of carcinomas with mucinous differentiation. Sci Rep. 2021 May 4;11(1):9478. PMCID: PMC8097060

Srinivasan P, Bandlamudi C, Jonsson P, Kemel Y, Chavan SS, Richards AL, Penson AV, Bielski CM, Fong C, Syed A, Jayakumaran G, Prasad M, Hwee J, Sumer SO, de Bruijn I, Li X, Gao J, Schultz N, Cambria R, Galle J, Mukherjee S, Vijai J, Cadoo KA, Carlo MI, Walsh MF, Mandelker D, Ceyhan-Birsoy O, Shia J, Zehir A, Ladanyi M, Hyman DM, Zhang L, Offit K, Robson ME, Solit DB, Stadler ZK, Berger MF, Taylor BS. The context-specific role of germline pathogenicity in tumorigenesis. Nat Genet. 2021 Nov;53(11):1577–1585. PMCID: PMC8957388

Selected Projects

cBioPortal – a web resource of the analysis of complex cancer genomics data

OncoKB – a precision oncology knowledge base

Please visit Dr. Shultz’s faculty page, PubMed or Google Scholar for more publications.

Lab Members

  • Ino de Bruijn

    Bioinformatics Software Engineer III
  • Ritika Kundra, MS

    Bioinformatics Software Engineer IV
  • Aaron Lisman

    Bioinformatics Software Engineer Lead I
  • Subhiksha Nandakumar

    Bioinformatics Engineer II
  • Moriah Nissan

    Scientific Writer/Editor, OncoKB
  • Angelica Ochoa

    Bioinformatics Software Engineer II
  • Sarah Phillips

    Senior Scientific Writer/Editor, OncoKB
  • Robert Sheridan

    Software Engineer
  • Selcuk Onur Sumer

    Software Engineer
  • Henry Walch

    Bioinformatics Software Engineer I
  • Avery Wang

    Bioinformatics Engineer I
  • Hongxin Zhang

    Bioinformatics Software Engineer
  • Xiang Li

    Bioinformatics Software Engineer I
  • Gaofei Zhao

    Bioinformatics Software Engineer I
  • Craig Bielski, MS

    PhD Candidate
    Tri-Institutional PhD Program in Computational Biology & Medicine
  • Walid Chatila

    Senior Computational Biologist II
  • Benjamin Gross

    Bioinformatics Software Engineer Lead I
  • Christoph Kreitzer

    Graduate Research Assistant
  • Ramyasree Madupuri

    Computational Biologist I
  • Brooke Mastrogiacomo

    Bioinformatics Engineer I
  • Baby Anusha Satravada

    Bioinformatics Software Engineer I
  • Nicole Scagliola

    Program Assistant
  • Divya Madala

    Bioinformatics Software Engineer I
  • Fan Wu

    Bioinformatics Software Engineer I
  • Joseph Kholodenko

    ‪Senior Computational Biologist
  • Calvin Lu

    ‪Bioinformatics Software Engineer I
  • Michele Waters

    ‪Senior Computational Biologist I
  • Ayush Kris

    GSK Student
  • Jordan Eichholz

    ‪Computational Biologist I
  • Jason Hwee

    ‪Bioinformatics Software Engineer III
  • Raymond Lim

    ‪Bioinformatics Software Engineer V
  • Enrico Moiso

    ‪Senior Computational Biologist I
  • Evan Seffar

    ‪Computational Biologist I
  • Farheen Shah

    ‪Computational Biologist I
  • Thinh Ngoc Tran

    ‪GSK Graduate Student

Former Lab Members

  • Adam Abeshouse

    Bioinformatics Software Engineer II
  • Debyani Chakravarty, PhD

    Assistant Attending Molecular Geneticist
  • Konnor La

    PhD Candidate
    Tri-Institutional PhD Program in Computational Biology & Medicine
  • Bastien Nguyen

    Research Scholar
  • Yichao Sun, MS

    Bioinformatics Software Engineer II
  • Joshua Armenia

    Research Fellow
  • Hsiao-Wei (Annice) Chen

    Data Curator
  • Frederick Criscuolo

    Computational Engineer