Prediction of individual patient response to immune therapy by assessing genetic mutations, like frame-shift mutations, in lung tumor tissue

Project summary

In recent years, new treatments for lung cancer, called immunotherapy, have emerged. This form of treatment is based on stimulating the patient’s immune system to attack the tumor(s). In some patients these treatments appear to be very successful, but this is not the case for all patients. With this project we try to develop a way of predicting whether or not an individual patient will respond to a specific form of immunotherapy using advanced analyzes of the genetic material (DNA and RNA) of patients. We will also investigate whether very specific variations in the genetic material of an individual person, so-called frame-shifts, can be used in the future to develop a completely tailor-made immunotherapy treatment. Advanced computer analyzes will be used for this, which will calculate on the basis of the results of analyzes on the genetic material what a personal anti-cancer vaccine should look like. It will also be investigated whether this computer model can predict whether a patient’s immune system will actually respond to the anti-cancer vaccine.

It is expected that the continuation of this project will consist of a study in patients in which the effect of the tailor-made anti-cancer vaccines will be further investigated.