Laboratorio di Metagenomica computazionale

The human microbiome associations with cancer have been investigated in different scenarios, with promising implications for cancer screening and modulating immunotherapy response. In our lab, we focused on extensively characterizing the microbiome in colorectal cancer (CRC) patients with respect to a wide range of clinical and biological variables ranging from stage of the disease, microsatellite instability and, motivated by significant increase of cancer incidence in the younger population, age of onset. When considering the role of the microbiome in immunotherapy treatment for melanoma and renal cell carcinoma, we identified specific microbial species associated with clinical response and characterized the role of the microbiome in fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) protocols supporting immunotherapy efficacies in still unpublished registered clinical trials. Overall, our talk will give an overview over these topics and discuss what are the perspectives in the field.