University of Vermont

Lung cancer is the leading cause of worldwide cancer-related mortality. Despite years of dedicated work focused on improving treatment and care, the overall prognosis for patients with lung cancer remains poor. Contributing to this frustrating lack of progress is the uncomfortable fact that “lung cancer” is not a single disease. One can convincingly argue that at the genomic level every lung cancer is unique. This underlying diversity helps explain why surgical resection remains our single most effective intervention. Unfortunately, surgical resection does not guarantee cure, and further it is not always a viable clinical option depending upon disease location, disease burden or other comorbidities. Our work aims to establish biomarkers that predict sensitivity to available therapies, including immunotherapy (IO), while also identifying exploitable pathways that may synergize with current IO approaches.

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