Through close interaction with medical doctors including oncologists and pathologists, we identify questions of urgent clinical need and direct our translational research projects towards these questions. The presence of tumoral heterogeneity (in time and space) challenges the implementation of omics technologies for precision oncology. Therefore, we are focusing on the optimization and implementation of methods to detect and monitor intra-tumoral, spatial and temporal heterogeneity in cancer patients. To this end, we apply single-cell/nucleus sequencing tools on tissue samples, and perform bulk omics analysis of liquid biopsy samples that are known to represent omics signal from tumor cells at different locations in the body. Optimization of these novel analytical tools and technologies as well as their implementation in the lab is an important objective within the team. In addition, an important aim in the lab is to develop and benchmark dedicated data mining/bio-informatics pipelines (including deconvolution and single-cell/nucleus sequencing analysis) to accompany these new analytical tools, allowing the full exploitation of their clinical application for the cancer patient.

Novel diagnostic, prognostic and predictive biomarker assays for precision oncology