An interview with ECR, Dr. Pinar Pir
An interview with young Principal Investigator Dr. Pinar Pir, partner in the iParaCyts project funded under TRANSCAN-3 JTC 2021.
Funded project
iParaCyts
Understanding and therapeutically exploiting the immunosuppressive paracrine signalling in the tumour microenvironment of metastatic lesions
Overview
iParaCyts project - Evaluating the therapeutic potential of immunosuppressive paracrine cytokines in the tumor microenvironment of metastatic lesions
Our consortium proposes the integrated study of immunosuppressive cytokines expressed in liver metastatic lesions. While most studies in immuno-oncology focus on primary tumors, the majority of patients treated with immunotherapies suffer from disseminated metastatic disease and, in many instances, liver metastasis. Liver metastases are common, confer dismal prognosis, constitute a clear unmet medical need, and are strongly associated with resistance to immunotherapy.
We will study five highly relevant cytokines (TGFβ, TNFα, IL8, LIF and GDF15) in liver metastasis. The reasons for this choice are: (a) evidence for integrated regulation of this cytokine network; (b) the expertise of the consortium members; and (c) inhibitory compounds against these targets are undergoing early clinical development in our institutions and serial biopsies from liver metastases are and will become available.
We hypothesize, based on preliminary data, that these five paracrine cytokines are crucial to promote tumor escape from the immune system in liver metastases, with potential redundancies when considering them as therapeutic targets. Our aims are: (a) epidemiology of the cytokines in human liver metastases; (b) effect of the inhibition of the cytokines on tumor growth and the cancer immune response; and (c) study of the tumor immune landscape in patients treated with inhibitors of these cytokines in the context of clinical trials.
Our studies will focus on patient-derived samples as well as syngeneic animal models of liver metastasis. Importantly, pre- and on-treatment biopsies from liver lesions in early phase clinical trials testing inhibitory compounds will be studied.
Our project will evaluate the five immunosuppressive cytokines as therapeutic targets in isolation or in potential synergistic treatment combinations, identify predictive biomarkers of response to cytokine blockade, and discover novel therapeutic targets for the treatment of liver metastasis.
Project Coordinator:
- Joan Seoane, Fundación Hospital Universitario Vall d’Hebron – Fundación Privada Institut d’Investigació Oncològica de Vall d’Hebron (VHIO), Spain
Project Partners:
- Ignacio Melero, Fundación Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria de Navarra, Spain
- Bruno Ségui, Cancer Research Center of Toulouse - INSERM, France
- Jörg Wischhusen, University Hospital Wuerzburg, Germany
- Gianluigi Giannelli, Ente Ospedaliero Specializzato in Gastroenterologia “Saverio de Bellis”, Italy
- Pinar Pir, Gebze Technical University, Turkey
Interview
An interview with young Principal Investigator, Dr. Pinar Pir, partner in the iParaCyts project, funded under the co-funded Joint Transnational Call 2021 of TRANSCAN-3.
Dr. Pinar is a Principal Investigator of the Pirism Lab, Department of Bioengineering, Gebze Technical University, Turkey.
How did you know about JTC 2021 TRANSCAN-3 call?
Although I was aware of the TRANSCAN-3 calls via announcement emails from TUBITAK (Editor’s note: TUBITAK is the funding agency from Turkey, partner of TRANSCAN-3), I did not have collaborators to initiate a consortium myself, hence I never attempted to apply for these calls. A former colleague, Dr. Vera Pancaldi, was already involved in the first stage of a project proposal to TRANSCAN-3 together with Prof. Bruno Ségui, and she noticed that a team working purely on bioinformatics could contribute to both project design and data analysis throughout the project. She introduced me to Prof. Ségui, we exchanged a few emails about my potential contribution, and eventually I joined the consortium after meeting Prof. Joan Seoane and the other consortium members.
What is the added value of the participation of an emerging group in TRANSCAN-3 projects?
As a computational biology group in a technical university, Gebze Technical University (GTU), we do not have access to Next Generation Sequencing facilities or clinical samples. Without collaboration with hospitals and experimental groups, we cannot access unpublished data and our work is confined to applying novel analysis methods to published data shared in databases.
In Turkey, the use of NGS technologies is still expensive compared with other countries and local funding is limited to about 50K euros per project. Taking part in a TRANSCAN-3 project will help us overcome many of these difficulties: the consortium will have a larger total budget, we will have access to novel clinical data, and we can contribute to novel discoveries. These opportunities will motivate the whole team and positively affect their future careers.
As an emerging group, we have little experience in international projects. Taking part as a Principal Investigator will allow me to gain expertise in leading a sub-team within a larger consortium. My group will also gain experience working with international researchers, wider recognition and perhaps future collaborations.
How do you think international consortia can help emerging groups to develop their careers?
Emerging groups can benefit in many ways. They can take part in projects with potentially large impact and obtain training opportunities from other consortium members. Both the PI and other group members can extend their scientific network, potentially leading to collaborations long after the project.
One example is the collaboration between Dr. Pancaldi and myself, which goes back to our time as postdocs. We met in the EpiGeneSys Consortium in 2012 and, although we never worked in the same institution, we kept in touch, met at conferences and collaborated in organising workshops and applying to calls. TRANSCAN consortia can help group members build similarly long-lasting scientific networks.
How do you envision TRANSCAN projects’ success in patients’ treatment?
TRANSCAN projects allow consortium members to jointly collect samples from many cancer types and generate data. Their outputs shed light on active molecular mechanisms and lead to proposed drug targets and candidates. Eventually, data can become publicly available for other researchers to analyse. The resulting knowledge should lead to improved and perhaps personalised treatment options for patients.
How did you get interested in looking for solutions in cancer research?
I worked on yeast, bacteria and stem cells as a PhD student and postdoctoral researcher in computational biology. In 2016, I was invited to participate in a collaborative project studying the effect of cellular dormancy on metastasis. I became fascinated by these mechanisms and realised how important it is to understand and prevent metastasis. Since then, most of my projects have focused on cancer and its microenvironment.
This TRANSCAN-3 project will bring my work closer to translational medicine and perhaps help save lives. For the first time I will be directly involved in analysing clinical samples together with experienced clinicians.
Do you think collaboration among different countries will accelerate transfer of results to patients?
International collaborations accelerate transfer to the clinic because expertise from groups in different countries can be integrated synergistically. Outputs from multinational projects are also disseminated more effectively and may be taken forward by other researchers or R&D companies.
How do you think TRANSCAN-3 can reach a higher number of emerging groups?
Joining a consortium is often mediated by previous contacts and mutual trust. Focused scientific events, COST actions, travel grants and online professional networks can help young investigators establish those contacts. Smaller face-to-face meetings can be particularly fruitful for building long-lasting collaborations.