Recent studies have shown that multiplexed immunofluorescence (mIF) and multiplexed immunohistochemistry (mIHC) assays outperform PD-L1 IHC and tumor mutational burden (TMB) in predicting response to checkpoint inhibitors (Lu et al., JAMA Oncology, Jul 2019). This is not surprising because immunotherapy treatments rely on the activation of the immune system to fight the tumor and studying treatment response requires an in-depth assessment of the tumor microenvironment (TME) with spatial context.

In this webinar, expert speakers from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center will discuss how they successfully implemented an automated, multiplexed tissue imaging platform for spatial profiling of the TME.

Dr. Savanh Chanthaphavong, the Director of the Experimental Histopathology Core Lab at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, will discuss how her lab adopted the Vectra® 3 and Vectra® Polaris™ Systems for highly multiplexed, high-throughput spatial analysis of FFPE tumor samples and the methodology they follow for validating Opal™ mIHC panels. She will also present different image analysis and cellular phenotyping solutions offered at her core lab.

Dr. Kristin G. Anderson, a Senior Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Greenberg Lab at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, is an active user of the mIHC services offered by the Experimental Histopathology Core Lab and has collaborated extensively with the core lab and its network of Principal Investigators to design mIHC panels that interrogate the immunosuppressive aspects of the TME. She will review some case examples of how multiplexed tissue imaging has helped to uncover new insights in the TME.

Learning objectives:

• How to implement a high-throughput, multiplexed imaging platform in a core lab
• How to validate multiplex IHC panels to profile the tumor microenvironment in FFPE samples
• Examples of how spatial profiling of tumor samples can uncover new insights in cancer biology.