Raheleh Rahbari

Dr. Raheleh Rahbari is a Cancer Research UK Career Development Fellow and Group Leader at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, where she leads the Rahbari Group within the Cancer, Ageing and Somatic Mutation Programme. Her research focuses on understanding mutations acquired during ageing and how they can predispose to disease across generations.

Dr. Rahbari's research interests span several key areas:

• Studying variation in germline mutation rates across families
• Investigating mutational processes operative in the germline
• Examining the impact of germline genetic mosaicism in offspring
• Using somatic mutations to infer the clonal dynamics of germline tissues
• Understanding how mutations acquired during ageing contribute to cancer predisposition

Her recent publications demonstrate a strong focus on mutational landscapes in both somatic and germline cells, with particular emphasis on how these mutations relate to cancer development and predisposition. Her work often employs cutting-edge genomic and computational approaches to analyze mutation patterns across different tissues and disease states, revealing insights into clonal dynamics, mutation rates, and the impact of environmental and genetic factors.

Dr. Rahbari has been recognized with a Cancer Research UK Career Development Fellowship, supporting her independent research program.

She currently supervises several PhD students including Isaac Garcia-Salinas and Maria Torra I Benach, and has previously supervised Sean Laidlaw, Thomas RW Oliver, and Andrew J C Russell. Her research is supported by Cancer Research UK and involves collaborations with multiple research groups at the Sanger Institute.

Dr. Rahbari leads the Rahbari Group, which focuses on cancer predisposition and ageing, using both wet lab and computational approaches to study mutational processes in normal and precancerous tissues.