Background

The human immune system has a key role in controlling tumor growth. This century-old idea has been reinforced in recent years due to the success of immune-modulating cancer therapies. The immune reaction can be triggered by neoantigens, small peptides that are translated from mutated genes and are presented to immune cells at the cancer cell membrane. However, different genomic alterations can lead to evasion of this immune reaction and hence result in a lack of immunotherapy response. Better understanding of these alterations has the potential to provide new insights in tumor-immune interactions, which could be exploited to predict differential responses to immunotherapy, which is a key unresolved question.

What we do

We are using computational approaches to study neoantigens and immune selection signals in large, publicly available genomic and transcriptomic datasets and evaluate those signals as putative biomarkers for immunotherapy responses.

Who is involved

Arne
Claeys

External Postdoc

Dilara Ağacik

Master Student

Jimmy
Van den Eynden

Principal Investigator

Research output