Ian Davis

About

Ian Davis, M.D., Ph.D., is the Principal Investigator of the Davis Lab at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research focuses on the application of integrated genome-wide approaches to identify the epigenetic and chromatin biology consequences of genetic alterations in human cancers. A primary focus of his lab is Ewing sarcoma, where they explore the mechanism through which the chromosomal translocation-derived fusion oncoprotein EWSR1-FLI1 regulates chromatin states and target genes. Leveraging their expertise in epigenomics, the lab also collaborates with other research groups across the campus studying various cancers and developmental disorders. In addition to his research, Dr. Davis is a pediatric hematologist-oncologist specializing in the care of children and young adults with bone and soft tissue sarcomas. Outside of his professional work, he enjoys spending time with his family, woodworking, and solving the New York Times crossword puzzle.

Research topics

• Biology
• Genetics
• Computational biology
• Evolutionary biology
• Mathematics
• Cancer research
• Virology
• Statistics

Selected publications

• The repertoire of mutational signatures in human cancer

  Nature · 2020 · 3673 citations

  , enabled the discovery of new signatures, the separation of overlapping signatures and the decomposition of signatures into components that may represent associated-but distinct-DNA damage, repair and/or replication mechanisms. By estimating the contribution of each signature to the mutational catalogues of individual cancer genomes, we revealed associations of signatures to exogenous or endogenous exposures, as well as to defective DNA-maintenance processes. However, many signatures are of unk…

  DOI

• Pan-cancer analysis of whole genomes

  Nature · 2020 · 3248 citations

  .

  DOI

• The evolutionary history of 2,658 cancers

  Nature · 2020 · 1112 citations

  , we reconstruct the life history and evolution of mutational processes and driver mutation sequences of 38 types of cancer. Early oncogenesis is characterized by mutations in a constrained set of driver genes, and specific copy number gains, such as trisomy 7 in glioblastoma and isochromosome 17q in medulloblastoma. The mutational spectrum changes significantly throughout tumour evolution in 40% of samples. A nearly fourfold diversification of driver genes and increased genomic instability are…

  DOI

• Patterns of somatic structural variation in human cancer genomes

  Nature · 2020 · 976 citations

  . Sixteen signatures of structural variation emerged. Deletions have a multimodal size distribution, assort unevenly across tumour types and patients, are enriched in late-replicating regions and correlate with inversions. Tandem duplications also have a multimodal size distribution, but are enriched in early-replicating regions-as are unbalanced translocations. Replication-based mechanisms of rearrangement generate varied chromosomal structures with low-level copy-number gains and frequent inve…

  DOI

• Comprehensive analysis of chromothripsis in 2,658 human cancers using whole-genome sequencing

  Nature Genetics · 2020 · 763 citations

  Chromothripsis is a mutational phenomenon characterized by massive, clustered genomic rearrangements that occurs in cancer and other diseases. Recent studies in selected cancer types have suggested that chromothripsis may be more common than initially inferred from low-resolution copy-number data. Here, as part of the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium of the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), we analyze patterns of chromothrips…

  DOI

Recent grants

• Chromatin maintenance in cancer progression

  NIH · $2.3M · 2015–2022

• NIH Grant R01CA166447

  NIH · $1.6M · 2017

• The application of Enhanced Cavitation to enable DNA and Chromatin Extraction from Archived Tissues

  NIH · $1.1M · 2017–2021

Frequent coauthors

• Rory Johnson

  University Hospital of Bern

  178 shared

• W. Kimryn Rathmell

  174 shared

• Roland Eils

  154 shared

• Thomas J. Mitchell

  Wellcome Sanger Institute

  154 shared

• P. Andrew Futreal

  144 shared

• Lars Feuerbach

  German Cancer Research Center

  138 shared

• L. Sylvia

  Mirai Hospital

  135 shared

• Geoff Macintyre

  Spanish National Cancer Research Centre

  130 shared

Labs

• The Davis LabPI

  Meet our Team!

Education

• MD

  Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

  1995

• PhD

  University of Illinois at Chicago

  1994

• BA

  Northwestern University

  1987

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