Objectives
The overall goal of the SATURN³ consortium is to combine unique expertise and most current technologies from basic, translational and clinical research to monitor and treat dynamic intratumor heterogeneity (ITH) in patients.
- Investigate the development of tumor heterogeneity in patients through longitudinal tumor profiling
- Implement standardized single-cell/spatial omics and imaging workflows combined with AI-driven analytics to dissect and characterize intratumor heterogeneity (ITH) in human tumors
- Explore the underlying mechanism generating tumor heterogeneity
- Identify converging principles of intratumor heterogeneity (ITH) within and across entities
- Employ causal and mechanistic modelling to derive candidate hypothesis of ITH associated resistance mechanisms mediated by cellular plasticity, stromal and immune microenvironment as well as many other biological principles.
- This is achieved partly by setting-up mechanistic experiments using patient derived organoids and xenografts and functional CRISPR mediated gene editing screens as well as single cell tracing technologies
- Validation and translation towards personalized treatment concepts
- Direct involvement of the patient perspective in the research work