WCLC 2019, Dr. Nan Fang, presented on lung cancer study

Time：2019-06-26 13:31:15  

On September 7-10, 2019, the 20th World Conference on Lung Cancer (WCLC) was held in Barcelona, Spain. Experts and scholars from around the world gathered together to discuss the clinical and scientific progress of lung cancer. This is the world's largest academic conference dedicated to lung cancer, providing a learning and communication platform for participants.

Lung cancer is one of the most common cancer types and a leading cause of cancer death. China has the biggest population of lung cancer patients in the world, and Chinese researchers have been very active and to contribute to luing cancer research within the Chinese patient population. 

Conference Content

Research progress on targeted therapy and immunotherapy is one of the popular topics at WCLC. During the Oral Presentation Session of Models and Biomarkers, Dr. Nan Fang, CEO of Singleron Biotechnologies presented on "Molecular profiling of adenocarcinoma and squamous cell lung cancer at single-cell resolution". This is a collaborating study with researchers from the University Hospital Cologne and Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital. The data were published in early 2021 in Nature Communications. Read more.

Content of Oral Presentation

scRNA sequencing analysis data of tissue biopsy samples from 42 advanced NSCLC patients was presented, and the single cell transcriptome difference between adenocarcinoma (ADC) and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) was demonstrated at the cancer cells level and immunological cells level, respectively.      

Cancer cells from SCC patients showed higher intra-and inter-patient heterogeneity than those of ADC patients. In the tumor microenvironment of both ADC and SCC, immunologic cells also showed high heterogeneity. The study also found that the T cell ratio was significantly lower in the immunotherapy no-respond group. The significantly higher level of heterogeneity for SCC could be a possible reason for poor responses to standard lung cancer therapies, including immunotherapy. Accurate characterization of SCC at single-cell resolution could hold the key to more effective therapeutic strategies.

Professor David Santamaria from IECB commented on the presentation: Compared with a recently published single-cell sequencing study of lung cancer, this study enrolled more patients, more clinical information was provided and the therapeutic regime was different.