David L. Goode

Dr. Goode is a Team Leader in the Computational Cancer Biology Program, where he heads the Evolutionary Cancer Genomics group. His research applies bioinformatics, molecular evolution and population genetics to large cancer genomics data sets to study the evolutionary forces governing the formation of tumours and their responses to therapy. All projects in my group are highly collaborative, teaming with a number of leading groups in prostate cancer, breast cancer and sarcoma research at the Peter Mac and beyond. The Goode laboratory combines bioinformatics, genomics, molecular evolution and population genetics to study the evolutionary forces governing the formation of tumours and their responses to therapy, with a focus on the role of genomic instability (mutation) in these processes. We mainly work on prostate cancer, breast cancer and sarcoma, though our approaches can be applied to a range of solid tumours. Evolutionary genomics is the use of genome-scale analysis to investigate how natural selection has shaped genetic and phenotypic diversity between and within species. As cancer results from strong selection for particular cellular phenotypes, evolutionary genomics has great potential to unlock the secrets of this disease. We use evolutionary genomics to study all stages of tumour evolution, through in-depth analysis of large genome and RNA sequencing data sets from cancer patients and laboratory models of cancer as well as computational and statistical modeling. Our research involves assessing genetic, epigenetic and phenotypic changes in individual tumours over time, as well as the impact impacts of mutation, selection and drift at the population and species level on the incidence and manifestation of cancer. We’re particularly interested are the tradeoffs related to elevated genomic instability typical of tumours, which can be both advantageous and deleterious, depending on external and intracellular conditions.