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Michael Wigler

Michael Wigler

Professor
Russell and Janet Doubleday Professor of Cancer Research
Cancer Center Member

Ph.D., Columbia University, 1978

wigler@cshl.edu | 516-367-8377

Wigler Lab Website   Faculty Profile

Devastating diseases like cancer and autism can be caused by spontaneous changes to our DNA—mutations first appearing in the child, or in our tissues as we age. We are developing methods to discover these changes in individuals, tumors, and even single cells, to promote early detection and treatments

Michael Wigler’s work provides a new paradigm for understanding and exploring human disease. The Wigler lab studies human cancer and the contribution of new mutation to genetic disorders. The cancer effort (with James Hicks, Alex Krasnitz, and Lloyd Trotman) focuses on breast and prostate cancers. It involves collaborative clinical studies to discover mutational patterns predicting treatment response and outcome and the development of diagnostics to detect cancer cells in bodily fluids such as blood and urine. The major tools are single-cell DNA and RNA analysis. The single-cell methods, which are in development, are also being applied to problems in neurobiology (with Josh Huang and Pavel Osten) to characterize neuronal subtypes, somatic mutation, and monoallelic expression. The Wigler lab’s genetic efforts are a collaboration with Ivan Iossifov and Dan Levy, and this team focuses on determining the role of new mutations in pediatric disorders. In a large-scale population sequencing project with W. Richard McCombie and the Genome Sequencing Center at Washington University in St. Louis, and supported by the Simons Foundation, the team has proven the contribution of this mechanism to autism. The work further suggests a relationship between the mutational targets in autism and the process of neuroplasticity that lies at the heart of learning. Smaller-scale population studies of congenital heart disease and pediatric cancer (collaborations with scientists at Columbia University and Memorial Sloan- Kettering Cancer Center, respectively) also point to new mutation as a causal factor in these disorders.

Wigler elected AACR Academy Fellow

See all Wigler news

Selected Publications

Integrated Computational Pipeline for Single-Cell Genomic Profiling

20 May 2020 | JCO clinical cancer informatics | 4:464-471
Chorbadjiev, L;  Kendall, J;  Alexander, J;  Zhygulin, V;  Song, J;  Wigler, M;  Krasnitz, A;  

Novel Insights Into Breast Cancer Copy Number Genetic Heterogeneity Revealed by Single-Cell Genome Sequencing

13 May 2020 | eLife | 9:e51480
Baslan, T;  Kendall, J;  Volyanskyy, K;  McNamara, K;  Cox, H;  D'Italia, S;  Ambrosio, F;  Riggs, M;  Rodgers, L;  Leotta, A;  Song, J;  Mao, Y;  Wu, J;  Shah, R;  Gularte-Merida, R;  Chadalavada, K;  Nanjangud, G;  Varadan, V;  Gordon, A;  Curtis, C;  Krasnitz, A;  Dimitrova, N;  Harris, L;  Wigler, M;  Hicks, J;  

Single-Chromosomal Gains Can Function as Metastasis Suppressors and Promoters in Colon Cancer

24 Feb 2020 | Developmental Cell | 52(4):413-428
Vasudevan, A;  Baruah, P;  Smith, J;  Wang, Z;  Sayles, N;  Andrews, P;  Kendall, J;  Leu, J;  Chunduri, N;  Levy, D;  Wigler, M;  Storchova, Z;  Sheltzer, J;  

Multiplex Accurate Sensitive Quantitation (MASQ) With Application to Minimal Residual Disease in Acute Myeloid Leukemia

21 Feb 2020 | Nucleic Acids Research (NAR) | 48(7):e40
Moffitt, A;  Spector, M;  Andrews, P;  Kendall, J;  Alexander, J;  Stepansky, A;  Ma, B;  Kolitz, J;  Chiorazzi, N;  Allen, S;  Krasnitz, A;  Wigler, M;  Levy, D;  Wang, Z;  

Copolymerization of single-cell nucleic acids into balls of acrylamide gel

14 Nov 2019 | Genome Research | 30(1):49-61
Li, S;  Kendall, J;  Park, S;  Wang, Z;  Alexander, J;  Moffitt, A;  Ranade, N;  Danyko, C;  Gegenhuber, B;  Fischer, S;  Robinson, B;  Lepor, H;  Tollkuhn, J;  Gillis, J;  Brouzes, E;  Krasnitz, A;  Levy, D;  Wigler, M;  

All Publications

Dietary pro-oxidant therapy by a vitamin K precursor targets PI 3-kinase VPS34 function

25 Oct 2024 | Science | 386(6720):eadk9167
Swamynathan, Manojit;  Kuang, Shan;  Watrud, Kaitlin;  Doherty, Mary;  Gineste, Charlotte;  Mathew, Grinu;  Gong, Grace;  Cox, Hilary;  Cheng, Eileen;  Reiss, David;  Kendall, Jude;  Ghosh, Diya;  Reczek, Colleen;  Zhao, Xiang;  Herzka, Tali;  Špokaitė, Saulė;  Dessus, Antoine;  Kim, Seung;  Klingbeil, Olaf;  Liu, Juan;  Nowak, Dawid;  Alsudani, Habeeb;  Wee, Tse-Luen;  Park, Youngkyu;  Minicozzi, Francesca;  Rivera, Keith;  Almeida, Ana;  Chang, Kenneth;  Chakrabarty, Ram;  Wilkinson, John;  Gimotty, Phyllis;  Diermeier, Sarah;  Egeblad, Mikala;  Vakoc, Christopher;  Locasale, Jason;  Chandel, Navdeep;  Janowitz, Tobias;  Hicks, James;  Wigler, Michael;  Pappin, Darryl;  Williams, Roger;  Cifani, Paolo;  Tuveson, David;  Laporte, Jocelyn;  Trotman, Lloyd;  

Sharing parental genomes by siblings concordant or discordant for autism

14 Jun 2023 | Cell Genomics | 3(6):100319
Wroten, Mathew;  Yoon, Seungtai;  Andrews, Peter;  Yamrom, Boris;  Ronemus, Michael;  Buja, Andreas;  Krieger, Abba;  Levy, Dan;  Ye, Kenny;  Wigler, Michael;  Iossifov, Ivan;  

Magnetically Functionalized Hydrogels for High-Throughput Genomic Applications

1 Jan 2023 | Advanced Materials Technologies
Lammertse, E;  Li, S;  Kendall, J;  Kim, C;  Morris, P;  Ranade, N;  Levy, D;  Wigler, M;  Brouzes, E;  

Accurate measurement of microsatellite length by disrupting its tandem repeat structure

12 Sep 2022 | Nucleic Acids Research (NAR) | :gkac723
Wang, Zihua;  Moffitt, Andrea;  Andrews, Peter;  Wigler, Michael;  Levy, Dan;  

Targeted de novo phasing and long-range assembly by template mutagenesis

13 Jul 2022 | Nucleic Acids Research (NAR)
Li, Siran;  Park, Sarah;  Ye, Catherine;  Danyko, Cassidy;  Wroten, Matthew;  Andrews, Peter;  Wigler, Michael;  Levy, Dan;  

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