Federal Grant Award Summary

The National Cancer Institute (NCI), under the Cancer Detection and Diagnosis Research Program (CFDA 93.394), awarded Columbia University a Project Grant of $428,975 on April 17, 2026, to develop DECODE (Deciphering Cancer Origin from DNA Evolution), a novel computational approach for reconstructing tumor evolution and predicting patient outcomes. The research, performed at Columbia's New York campus through March 31, 2031, will integrate analysis of the site frequency spectrum neutral tail—comprised of recent mutations indicative of tumor expansion—to enhance the accuracy of intra-tumor heterogeneity (ITH) estimation and enable improved risk stratification and treatment selection in clinical practice. DECODE incorporates mathematical corrections for sample-specific coverage and mutation filtering effects to reduce overfitting and enhance detection of overlapping clusters in DNA sequencing data.

Under Aim 2 of the project, researchers will validate DECODE using primary cancer samples from the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) to characterize the site frequency spectrum neutral tail, estimate subclone numbers and frequencies, and infer tumor evolution timelines. The project will establish a novel mathematical framework to determine the age of each tumor's most recent common ancestor, subclonal arrival times, and growth rates. These deliverables directly support the NCI's Cancer Detection and Diagnosis Research Program objective to develop accurate diagnostic techniques and methods for predicting disease course and response to therapy in cancer patients.