Marco Gerlinger

Marco Gerlinger performed the landmark multi-region sequencing study of renal cell carcinoma that demonstrated extreme intratumor heterogeneity with branching evolutionary trees and convergent evolution of the same signaling pathways in independent tumor regions, fundamentally proving that single biopsies underestimate tumor diversity. His research at the Institute of Cancer Research has shown how therapy drives convergent evolution of resistance mechanisms across independent tumor subclones and has defined the principles of branched tumor evolution. His work established the critical importance of spatial and temporal sampling for understanding tumor evolution.