TUMOUR-HOST INTERACTIONS IN LIVER CANCER OF CHILDHOOD AND ADULTS

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Liver cancer is a major health problem with ~1 million cases diagnosed each year (~90,000 cases/year in Europe), and it is the 3rd cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide. Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in adults, and hepatoblastoma (HB) in children are considered poorly understood cancers. HCC is a difficult-to-cure cancer (curation rate ~ 30%) with poor outcome (median survival < 2 years in advanced stages), due to limited understanding of at-risk populations, resistance to therapies and lack of precision oncology. In HB, outcomes are hampered in one fourth of cases due disease progression after surgical intervention and adjuvant chemotherapy. THRIVE aims by to improve the outcome of both paediatric and adult liver cancer patients by understanding at-risk populations, tumour-host interactions, and by developing biomarkers for current therapies and novel, affordable treatments to overcome resistance. THRIVE brings together a strong, multidisciplinary team -13 partners, from 8 countries- with complementary expertise to leverage cutting-edge technologies (single-cell RNASeq, spatial transcriptomics, microbiota analysis, artificial intelligence, mouse models and patient-derived organoids) and sectors (i.e academia, SMEs, hospitals, patient associations) and 15 patient cohorts (~6,700 samples). THRIVE expects to: 1) Define molecular features of cancer predisposition and at-risk populations for development of liver cancer. 2) Develop a complete human liver cancer blueprint of tumour, immune, stromal cells and intra-tumoral microbiomes. 3) Identify AI-based and molecular markers of response to treatments. 4) Implement a preclinical drug testing platform for discovery of affordable therapies with high social impact. 5) Maximize the impact in the European society by integrating SSH disciplines, delivering accessible and re-usable data and tools to support EU initiatives such as the UNCAN.eu platform, and by influencing policymakers and health professionals. This action is part of the Cancer Mission cluster of projects on “Understanding (tumour-host interactions)".