The Terry Fox Research Institute (TFRI) has recently announced that Dr. Christian Steidl, who is a Professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and Distinguished Scientist at the British Columbia Cancer Research Institute (BCCRI), is among the top researchers in Canada to be awarded a 2022 Terry Fox New Frontiers Program Project Grant (PPG). Dr. Steidl (nominated principal applicant) together with the research team at BCCRI consisting of overall 13 investigators, are long-time PPG awardees and will be receiving 6 million dollars for a renewal of their research project, entitled “Modeling lymphoma evolution and clinical trajectory using multiomics” over the next 6 years. This prestigious award is given to outstanding researchers in Canada to support innovative, world-leading research in cancer prevention, diagnosis and/or treatment.

The PPG Program features three inter-related projects and three technology cores, each led by team members to study disease evolution over time, decipher genetic, epigenetic and phenotypic changes within cancer cells using multiomics, and elucidate the contribution of cellular ecosystems in the tumor microenvironment. The project teams will focus on the most common forms of lymphoma, namely follicular lymphoma, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, Hodgkin lymphoma and pathologically related diseases. Lymphomas are very diverse in their clinical and biological behaviour and are, therefore, carefully sub-divided to guide treating physicians and patients in their choice of the best available therapy. The current standard of care fails to cure the lymphoma in a substantial proportion of patients. This inability to cure patients leads to recurrence of the lymphoma, and affected patients are then very likely to succumb to their disease. Unfortunately, the causes of relapsed disease are mostly unknown and, as a consequence, physicians cannot identify patients destined to relapse, nor can they provide alternative treatments to prevent this from occurring.

“Biologically guided treatment decisions will ultimately reduce side effects and improve outcomes and quality of life for patients suffering from lymphomas in the near future.”

The application of leading edge technologies such as single-cell sequencing, imaging mass cytometry and integrative data analysis platforms, enables the project team to quantify and visualize the changes that occur within cancer cells and the microarchitecture of lymph nodes and other organs involved with the lymphoma at the individual cell level. This information helps to understand how the cancer cells communicate with each other and their surrounding cellular ‘ecosystem’ in the direct vicinity of the patient’s immune cells. An advantage of this study is the parallel investigation of multiple types of molecules in each cell and each patient with knowledge of the ultimate treatment outcome. This gives the project team the opportunity to integrate all layers of information into one comprehensive model with the goal to understand the diverse causes that lead to a specific lymphoma diagnosis and resistance to treatment. In particular, Dr. Steidl hopes to gain deeper insights into the mechanisms of lymphomagenesis and disease evolution, which will help develop more accurate clinical tests, new drugs and personalized treatments: “Biologically guided treatment decisions will ultimately reduce side effects and improve outcomes and quality of life for patients suffering from lymphomas in the near future.”