Detail

Keywords

Biomarkers, Pharmacological; Immunotherapy; Inflammation; Medical Oncology; Pathology

Research group(s)

• Christian Doppler Laboratory for Personalized Immunotherapy
  Head: Matthias Preusser
  Research Area: The Christian Doppler Laboratory for Personalized Immunotherapy aims to provide a comprehensive 360° biomarker including various tissue-based, blood-based and radiology-based information of a particular patient for prediction of response to immune checkpoint-inhibition.
  Members:
  Barbara Niederdorfer
  Markus Kleinberger

Research interests

Tumormicroenvironment: Immune Cell Infiltration Pattern within Solid Tumors and Metastases

Immunotherapy has been one of the recent achievements in cancer therapy, becoming a promising systemic treatment option against solid tumors. With treatment success varying widely, patient selection and impact of individual tumor microenvironment on response rates are of considerable interest. Significance of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes and tumor-associated macrophages in inflammatory cancer microenvironment under systemic treatment is yet not fully understood.

Longitudinal Aspects of Inflammation: Cytokines, Antibody Profiling and Biomarker Development in Cancer Patients

Additionally, cytokines play key roles in inflammation, immune response, metabolism, and carcinogenesis, and have been investigated widely. Though single cytokine treatment against cancer has not turned out successful in the past, novel immunotherapy emphasized importance of cytokine and immune cell interaction. However, data on longitudinal changes over the course of treatment, especially at end of life is lacking.

Epigenetics in Oncology: DNA-Methylation and its Impact on Immunotherapy Response and Immunogenicity

Given the high importance of immunological factors, particular in the context of modern immune modulating therapies, an additionally deeper insight on the association of peripheral blood methylation signatures with outcome is warranted. So far, epigenome-wide studies in oncology concentrated on the analysis of tumor tissue itself.

Techniques, methods & infrastructure

• Immunohistochemistry
• Tissue Imaging and Entropy Measurements
• Blood- and Tissue-based DNA-Methylation
• Radiological Response Evaluation in Solid Tumors (RECIST/iRECIST)
• Biobanking

Selected publications

1. Tomasich, E. et al. (2023) ‘Frequent Overexpression of HER3 in Brain Metastases from Breast and Lung Cancer’, Clinical Cancer Research, pp. OF1–OF12. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1158/1078-0432.ccr-23-0020.