iINGUT: immunotherapy on an INtegrated GUt microbiome and Tumor on-chip.

In 2020, cancer affected 2.7 million people in the European Union and claimed 1.3 million lives, including more than 2,000 young adults. If immediate action is not taken, cancer cases are expected to increase by 24% by 2035. This project aims to accelerate the development of new cancer therapies. Immunotherapy, particularly through immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs), stands out as a highly promising treatment, utilizing the body's own immune system to target and destroy cancer cells with greater precision and fewer side effects than other approaches. Yet, the effectiveness of ICIs varies significantly between patients and tumor types. In this regard, the hosting laboratory has been on the frontline in studies that revealed the influence of the individual gut microbiome on the heterogeneity in ICIs response, opening new avenues for improving treatment outcomes.iINGUT (immunotherapy on an INtegrated GUt microbiome and Tumor on-chip) is a novel platform designed to study the modulatory role of the gut microbiome on the response of solid tumors to therapy, and in particular to ICI. iINGUT consists on a mechanically active microfluidic system integrating the complexity of multicellular structures and functions of the human intestine with a module dedicated to patient-derived tumor models. The entire platform can be personalized with fecal, blood, and tumor samples from the patient, providing a time- and cost-effective tool for predicting treatment outcome and developing novel immunotherapy-based strategies tailored for specific groups of patients. iINGUT will enable me to apply my engineering background to complex biological questions, facilitating my growth as a researcher and advancing my interdisciplinary expertise.