Dr. Yin is using newly developed state-of-the-art single cell sequencing technology to examine how DNA repair mechanisms go awry and contribute to cancer initiation and progression, as well as response to chemotherapy. Cancer cells usually have characteristic loss-of-heterozygosity, copy number variation and other types of genome rearrangements. A better understanding of the molecular mechanisms, genomic and cell contexts and effects from different allele variants in DNA repair genes of each individual may help guide treatment approaches for many cancer types, including breast, skin, and blood cancers.