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Integrated IMMUnoprofiling of large adaptive CANcer patients cohorts

Project description

A European biobank to support immunotherapy research

Immunotherapy for cancer has not lived up to its initial promise, and results from clinical trials are variable. Therefore, the need arises to be able to predict response to immunotherapy or design combination therapies. For this purpose, the EU-funded IMMUcan project is building a state-of-the-art biobank of biological samples from cancer patients for whom immunotherapy has failed. Through a centralised workflow, the consortium will collect, process and store samples from various clinical trials in a uniform way. The samples will undergo immunoprofiling with cutting-edge technologies to investigate tumour–immune system interactions following or in the absence of treatment.

Objective

IMMUcan proposes an inclusive and integrated European immuno-oncology platform. IMMUcan will access high-quality human biological material (tissue, blood, stool and saliva) and clinical data from patients with colorectal, lung, head & neck, breast, gastric cancers and immune checkpoints inhibitors failures. We have assembled a strong consortium with ten expert clinical centers, access to large volumes of the required tumor types. IMMUcan will mobilize the majority of academic trials running or expected to start recruiting patients during the project period. A centralized workflow for samples, via a state-of-the-art biobank will increase reproducibility as all tissues will be processed and stored in a uniform way, following proofed SOPs. The project will perform in depth immunoprofiling with cutting edge technologies including CyTOFF, single cell RNA-seq, peptidogenomics or microbiome analysis. IMMUcan will analyze the data in order to understand the host/tumour interaction in the absence of treatment (naïve population) and with treatment (patients in follow-up) to identify potential predictive biomarker for response to immunotherapy, or develop rationale for combination therapies. IMMUcan will provide an IT platform and legal/ethical contractual framework where participants from both academia and industry can pursue their own independent investigations utilizing the IMMUcan data and effectively testing and improving the functioning and relevance of the database. A sustainability plan will be developed to ensure the collection of follow-up data and the accessibility of the data platform. The use of the data generating throughout this project, for future research, will be supported.

Coordinator

EUROPEAN ORGANISATION FOR RESEARCH AND TREATMENT OF CANCER AISBL
Net EU contribution
€ 6 877 631,00
Address
Avenue E. Mounier 83
1200 Bruxelles / Brussel
Belgium

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Region
Région de Bruxelles-Capitale/Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest Région de Bruxelles-Capitale/ Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest Arr. de Bruxelles-Capitale/Arr. Brussel-Hoofdstad
Activity type
Research Organisations
Links
Total cost
€ 13 477 631,75

Participants (32)