Although the prognosis of patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) has slowly improved during the past decades, metastatic CRC (mCRC) still has a devastating survival of less than 15%. Therapeutic options for most mCRC patients are scarce, and immunotherapy has shown limited benefits so far. The lack of substantial progress in this area underscores significant knowledge gaps.

Recent data have revealed that the metastatic tumor microenvironment (mTME) evolves during disease progression, offering effective windows for immunotherapy at early stages but becoming progressively less responsive as metastases expand. However, the cellular components and the dynamics of the mTME remain to be characterised.

THE ROLE OF CNAG

To address this challenge, the Single Cell Genomics Group at CNAG, led by Dr. Holger Heyn, together with the Batlle and Amit labs, propose to join forces and combine their complementary technologies and expertise to apply state-of-the-art single-cell genomic approaches that enable in vivo recording of cell-state transitions over time to dissect liver metastasis progression in human-like mCRC mouse models.

Successful execution of this proposal holds the promise to inspire novel therapeutic strategies for effectively managing advanced metastatic disease.