A modular platform for harmonized, multiplex immune profiling of MOHCCN Gold Cohorts across Canadian institutions

Harmonizing immune profiling across Canada to further precision immunotherapies

Over the last two decades, researchers have discovered that long-term cancer survivors often have high numbers of immune cells within their tumours. This has led them to conclude that the immune system plays an important role in combating cancer and has been the basis for the development of new therapies that harness the immune system to fight it.

Current immunotherapies are already benefiting some, but not all, patients. To make these therapies more effective and bring them to more patients, a pan-Canadian team led by experts in Halifax and Victoria will use new funding from the Terry Fox Research Institute and the Marathon of Hope Cancer Centres Network to create a standardized method to accurately map immune cells in and around tumours. This will give researchers a clearer picture of how immune cells interact with tumours and mediate therapy response in thousands of individual patients, providing necessary information to help improve the efficacy of treatments, including immunotherapies and new drugs.

“We are very grateful for this support as it will allow us to develop standardized methods to visualize, count and characterize immune cells that surround the tumour to better understand the role these cells play in various cancers,” explains Dr. Jeanette Boudreau, an immunologist at Dalhousie University, who will lead the team along with Dr. Brad Nelson at BC Cancer.  “Understanding how the anti-tumour immune response relates to tumour features is crucial to design effective cancer immunotherapies.”

A standardized solution for Canadian researchers 

This project is funded through the MOHCCN-TFRI Technology Development Awards, which support the development of new technologies that seek to enhance the quality and impact of data currently being generated through the Marathon of Hope Cancer Centres Network.

Funding through a pan-Canadian network like the MOHCCN makes the potential impact of this work even more significant. It will allow the team to create a standardized method to profile the immune landscape of tumours that can be deployed across Canada. This will enable consistent and reliable immune cell analysis across laboratories nationwide, facilitating pan-Canadian comparisons of tumour samples.

These standardized immune profiles, when paired with genomic, transcriptomic and clinical data which is already part of the Network’s Gold Cohort, will provide researchers with information to better understand the relationship between the immune system, genomic landscape and therapy response.

“Our goal is to apply this standardized protocol and analysis workflow across the Gold Cohort samples, which includes diverse tumour types from multiple participating sites,” says Dr. Boudreau. “Our standardized immunophenotyping workflow will empower researchers across Canada to link immune profiles to genetic features in individual patients, enabling more predictive and precise approaches to cancer treatment.”

“Importantly, by applying these methods to thousands of patients’ samples from labs across Canada, we anticipate that this work will lead to new treatments to boost patients’ immune defenses, improving survival and quality of life for those with cancer.”