A combinatorial algorithm to identify independent and recurrent copy number aberrations across cancer types

Somatic copy number aberrations (SCNAs) are frequent in cancer genomes, but many of these are random events that do not contribute to the cancer phenotype. A common strategy to distinguish functional, driver events from such random passenger events it to identify recurrent aberrations shared by multiple samples. However, the extensive variability in the length and position of SCNAs across samples makes the problem of identifying recurrent aberrations notoriously difficult.