Inigo Martincorena

Inigo Martincorena demonstrated that cancer driver mutations are widespread in phenotypically normal human tissues, fundamentally reshaping understanding of early cancer evolution. His dN/dS framework for detecting selection in somatic tissues has become the gold standard for cancer driver gene identification. He showed that normal esophageal and skin epithelia are extensively colonized by clones carrying cancer driver mutations, establishing that cancer initiation requires additional events beyond driver mutation acquisition.