A nationwide team of universities, hospitals and industry, including the Institute of Genetics and Cancer, have launched a new platform to understand immunotherapy response and side effects in cancer: October 2024 Led by the Francis Crick Institute and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, and funded by £9m from the Medical Research Council and the Office for Life Sciences, with £12.9m in matched funds from industry partners, this programme will involve thousands of patients treated with immunotherapy from across the UK.Drugs that help the immune system fight cancer, collectively known as immunotherapy, are a frontline treatment for some types of cancer like melanoma.Long-term studies have shown that it can completely eradicate advanced disease for some patients but the majority of people with cancer do not benefit, with many relapsing or experiencing significant side effects. Even in melanoma, where immunotherapy is most successful, only 50% respond.The new programme, MANIFEST (Multiomic Analysis of Immunotherapy Features Evidencing Success and Toxicity), has been set up to evaluate the many barriers to the success of immunotherapy.These include a lack of testable and usable biomarkers, signs that suggest to doctors whether someone will or will not benefit from a given drug. Identifying these biomarkers could help to select patients most likely to benefit, but also reveal avenues for new treatments, like vaccines and cell therapies.MANIFEST will aim to validate which biomarkers are present in patients before they start immunotherapy, and to develop tests that can monitor them during treatment.The initial testing will include 3000 patients who have already completed their treatment and then 3000 who are starting treatment across the UK for breast, bladder, kidney and skin cancer, with plans to include additional cancer types as the programme expands.Over four years, data will be collected from these patients, using procedures like blood tests, stool samples and tissue biopsies.The team will analyse different aspects of cancerous tumours, including their genetic makeup, where they are in relation to immune cells, and what chemical signals they are producing. They will also generate a profile of immune cells in each patient’s bloodstream and analyse their gut microbiome. We’re very excited to be part of this national collaborative effort. The MANIFEST platform will provide an invaluable resource for research that directly improves the care of patients with cancer and the way we use immunotherapy treatments. It will support work at the University of Edinburgh and CRUK Scotland Centre, and foster closer relationships with our national partners. Dr Mark Stares Medical Oncologist, Edinburgh Cancer Centre and Senior Clinical Research Fellow, CRUK Scotland Centre This exciting initiative will greatly improve our understanding of standard and trial immunotherapies for cancer, aiming to maximise the benefit of existing treatments in an individualised way, whilst enabling new discoveries to develop the new and improved treatments of the future. The UK’s Experimental Cancer Medicine Centres are a nationwide network that will work closely with the wider MANIFEST consortium to bring these improvements to clinical trials across the country, enabling patients access to the discoveries that are made. Dr Stefan Symeonides Medical Oncologist, Edinburgh Cancer Centre and lead for the Edinburgh Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre Links:Read more about the project: Manifest IO (manifest-io.org.uk) Tags 2024 Publication date 08 Oct, 2024
