Mentor: Dr. Jennifer Kalish

Beckwith-Wiedemann Syndrome (BWS) is a cancer predisposition disorder in which up to one in four children develop cancer. While we understand some of the genetic and epigenetic changes that lead to BWS, we do not currently understand how these changes can lead to tumor development. The majority of BWS patients have changes in methylation at an imprinting control region, which leads to dysregulation of genes involved in growth and development. This project focuses on additional changes outside of the BWS region to identify additional markers for cancer, specifically for hepatoblastoma and Wilms tumor.