Dr Roel Verhaak

Roel Verhaak, PhD., is a Professor and Associate Director of the Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine in Farmington, CT. The Verhaak lab studies tumor evolution and mechanisms of therapy resistance using genomic characterization and computational analyses, in particular as it relates to brain tumors. 

Following the observation that extrachromosomal DNA amplifications (ecDNA) drive tumor evolution in glioblastoma (DeCarvalho et al, Nat Genetics, 2018), the lab is dedicated to understand how the presence of ecDNA can be leveraged to improve cancer outcomes. Important results include showing that ecDNA is frequent across cancer (Kim et al, Nat Genetics, 2020) and the identification of ecDNA hubs as the functional units of cargo gene transcription (Yi et al, Cancer Discovery, 2021).

Roel Verhaak is a recipient of the AAAS Wachtel Award, the Agilent Early Career Professor Award, and the Peter Steck Memorial Award.