Cancer research now generates huge amounts of data, and sophisticated computational tools are needed to answer biological questions. Making sense of this variability at molecular level will help us better tailor treatments to individual cancer patients. Dr Benjamin Schuster-Böckler heads the computational group at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research. His work has demonstrated that epigenetic modifications influence the mutational landscape in cancer cells. He studies the effects of DNA-binding proteins on transcription factors, with the aim to understand the regulation (and mis-regulation) of the transcription of important oncogenes and tumour suppressors.