Tuesday, May 14, 2024
5/14/2024
IMMUNE MONITORING AND ANALYSIS OF CANCER AT STANFORD (IMACS) Abstract The Center for Immune Monitoring and Analysis of Cancer at Stanford (IMACS) will perform highly comprehensive assays of immune phenotype and function for NCI-identified clinical trials. These will include standardized assays already developed on CyTOF, high-dimensional flow cytometry, Luminex, TCRseq, and RNAseq platforms. As part of the program we will also standardize and offer as assays Stanford-invented technologies under development, including Multiplexed Ion Beam Imaging (MIBI) and Assays of Transposon- Accessible Chromatin (ATAC-seq). We have designed our center structure to work with investigators to define the assays best suited to the immunological questions being posed, and match these with the required sample types. We will perform quality control measures on all assays, as well as generate a standard report for each assay and project. Data will be organized via our online database, Stanford Data Miner, to ensure data longevity and transferability, as well as access to both raw data files and analyzed results. Finally, we will work with investigators on novel bioinformatics approaches to mining these high-dimensional data sets. These will include approaches designed for a single data type (e.g., viSNE and Citrus for CyTOF and flow cytometry data), as well as approaches for integrating data across assays, using appropriate machine learning algorithms to aid NCI researchers in identifying immune hallmarks central to their trials. Relevance: The IMACS center will provide access to a suite of state-of-the-art immune assays, many of them developed or refined at Stanford. This unmatched set of technologies will facilitate the discovery of new biomarkers for predicting cancer outcome or therapeutic response, as well as defining potential new mechanisms of immune control of cancer.
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