Investigating the immune context of human cancer

Associate Professor Paul Neeson, Human Immunology Translational Research Laboratory, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre

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Tools for Quantitative Pathology

Dr Justin Ross, Imaging and Technical Sales Specialist Oceania, Perkin Elmer

Associate Professor Paul Neeson

Paul Neeson completed a PhD at the University of Melbourne (Pathology), before doing a post-doc in the Paterson lab (University of Pennsylvania) where he worked on B-cell lymphoma vaccines. He returned to Melbourne and established the human translational lab (HITRL) in Cancer Immunology Research at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. The Lab’s original focus was in haematological cancers, examining responses to novel immunotherapy combinations. Along with the increasing clinical interest in Immuno-Oncology, his lab now also examines the immune context of solid tumours and patient responses to checkpoint inhibitor or chimeric antigen receptor T cell therapy.  

Human Immuno-Oncology

Recent immunotherapy trials have shown dramatic responses in patients with a wide range of cancer sub-types. However, predicting which patients will respond to immunotherapy, and what type of immunotherapy is appropriate has proven difficult. To address these issues, we have developed a range of technologies to explore the immune context of human cancer including multiplex immuno-histochemistry and immune gene expression profile on primary or metastatic tumour FFPE sections. We have also developed a TIL (tumour-infiltrating lymphocyte) program to explore the immune context in fresh tumour samples from patients with melanoma, breast or prostate cancer.