iMMagine

Description

We hypothesize that tumor-immune microenvironment and macroenvironment alterations shape MM progression and treatment resistance. The problem is that the current understanding of immune resilience vs loss of function in MM is limited and, because of it, there are no immune biomarkers ready for primetime use in laboratory diagnostics. The consequence of this problem is that current risk models are incomplete and accordingly, are prognostic but not predictive at the individual patient level. The ulterior consequence of this problem is that the timing of treatment initiation, type and duration of regimens are not individualized, and cure rates remain low.

The solution to this problem requires large cohorts of patients and controls, with standardized immune profiling at multiple time points to define immune kinetics, all of which linked to well-annotated clinical and biological datasets to be mined by IA tools. The solution to this problem also requires advanced models to experiment new immunotherapy approaches in specific disease stages and genetic subgroups. iMMagine is the solution to this problem because we have the models and the largest ever immunological dataset coupled with clinical and biological features, treatments and patient’ outcomes. The overarching aim of iMMagine is to pave the way of curative immunotherapy in MM.