Advanced Functional Analysis of Tumour–Immune Interactions for Functional Genomics Projects

We are looking to join collaborative research consortia as a partner providing functional cancer immunology and advanced cytometry expertise.

Our main contribution would be the functional characterization and validation of candidate genes, molecular pathways and therapeutic targets identified by consortium partners through functional genomics, screening, genomic/transcriptomic analyses, drug screening or computational target discovery.

A particular strength we offer is the BD FACSDiscover S8, integrating full-spectrum flow cytometry, cellular imaging and high-speed cell sorting. This enables high-dimensional characterization of tumour and immune cells while simultaneously obtaining image-based information at the single-cell level. Populations displaying specific phenotypic or interaction characteristics can subsequently be isolated for downstream molecular or functional analyses.

We can offer to a consortium: i) tumour–immune interaction models, ii) establish and analyse co-culture systems combining tumour cells with different immune-cell populations, with particular expertise in monocytes/macrophages; these models can be used to investigate how candidate genes or therapeutic interventions influence immune activation, immune suppression and tumour–immune communication, iii) perform multiparametric immune and tumour phenotyping together with image-based characterization of individual cells and cellular interactions; potential readouts include tumour–immune cell conjugates, cell morphology, internalization and uptake, phagocytosis, apoptosis, immune activation and changes in cell-surface or intracellular markers, iv) sort specific tumour or immune-cell populations for subsequent functional experiments or molecular characterization, v) determine whether genetic or pharmacological modulation affects tumour-cell survival, immune recognition, vi) link functional phenotypes to RNA sequencing, providing mechanistic information about pathways associated with experimentally observed tumour–immune phenotypes vii) characterize cytokine and chemokine responses using multiplex assays and integrate them with cellular and transcriptomic readouts.

We could contribute to a dedicated work package or task on functional and mechanistic validation of cancer targets in tumour–immune models. Our goal is to complement genomic and computational target-discovery platforms by providing the experimental cancer-immunology expertise needed to translate genomic associations into biologically validated tumour–immune mechanisms.