Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death. Treatment efficacy is currently limited by lack of robust predictive biomarkers to select the best treatment for an individual patient, therapy resistance and low availability of targeted therapies. To identify new predictive biomarkers and achieve better stratification of patients, we collect biological material and imaging data. Integrated analysis of profiling of primary tumour, gut microbiome, circulating markers and imaging markers are used to characterise patients and tumour diseases. The new knowledge and procedures will be used to enhance treatment and design new clinical trials.

Translational studies related to ongoing clinical trials:

1. Clinical trials:
   DART - Durvalumab After chemoRadioTherapy (DART) for NSCLC patients – a phase II translational and biomarker study investigating PDL1 positive and negative patients
   2. NIPU - Nivolumab and ipilimumab +/- UV1 vaccination as second line treatment in patients with malignant mesothelioma
   3. COM-IT-2 - Combinatory ImmunoTherapy-2 (Com-IT-2) - a phase 2 randomised open two-arm study to assess the tolerability and efficacy of immunotherapy combined with extensive radiotherapy for the treatment of stage IV non-small cell lung cancer
2. Translational projects:
   1. Gut microbiome profiling to identify alterations during immunotherapy and identify biomarkers for therapy response
   2. Immune cell profiling of tumour and circulating cytokines to study immune response to therapy and identify predictive biomarkers
   3. Evaluation of dual-time PET to elucidate tumour cell composition in response to therapy 
3. National PI of clinical trials:
   a. PACIFIC-R
   b. KeyLynk-012
   c. ImPRESS-losartan
   d. PACIFIC-8
   e. KeyNote-857
   f. COM-IT-2
4. Main supervisor for PhD students Hanne Marte Nymoen, Saima Jamil Farooqi and Solfrid Thunold, co-supervisor for Henrik Horndalsveen