Immuno-oncology

The development of immuno therapeutics has revolutionised treatment for cancer patients. Immuno-oncology harnesses the innate ability of the patient’s immune system to attack and eradicate the tumour. Immunity is controlled by core genetic processes and the cellular machinery they encode and in recent years, Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) has been used to understand the ways in which tumours evolve to evade immune system attack and to analyse the determinants of immunotherapy response.

Genomics Application in Immuno-oncology

Whole genome and whole exome sequencing can be used to determine the tumour mutational burden (TMB), a clinical biomarker, which is often prognostic of certain treatment outcomes.
Biomarker identification assists in treatment decisions based on the predictive nature of certain mutations within oncogenes or tumour suppressor genes.