Skip to content

Oncology

Oncology studies the mechanisms of cancer and the strategies to fight it, from solid tumours to haematological malignancies. The field is now organised around three complementary levers: immuno-oncology, which harnesses the patient’s own immune system to recognise and destroy tumour cells; targeted therapies, directed against the molecular alterations specific to each tumour; and precision medicine, which tailors patient management to each individual’s biological profile. Together, progress across these approaches is transforming the prognosis of many cancers.

Oncology is among the areas to which Inovarion has contributed most, across a broad range of sites: colon and rectum, breast, bladder, kidney and prostate, but also liver, biliary tract, adrenal gland, brain and melanoma. A significant part of this work concerns the characterisation of the tumour immune microenvironment. Inovarion took part in validating the Immunoscore — a standardised quantification of CD3+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes infiltrating the tumour, measured by digital pathology — as a prognostic and predictive biomarker in colon cancer (the international SITC study)[8], rectal cancer (selecting patients eligible for active surveillance), urothelial carcinoma and breast cancer. This work connects with the study of microsatellite instability, neo-antigens and the evolution of metastases under immune pressure[10].

Several projects have focused on the tumour-suppressor gene ATIP3 and microtubule dynamics in breast cancer, leading to the identification of the WEE1 kinase as a therapeutic target in ATIP3-deficient forms[2]. Other contributions address the FGFR3 receptor in bladder cancers[6,7], synthetic-lethality approaches in renal carcinoma, and tumour epigenetics (DNA hypermethylation, SETDB1[4]). More recent targets have been added, such as netrin-1 in paediatric medulloblastoma[5] or anti-mesothelin CAR-T cells in prostate cancer[3]. Some work also addresses the mechanisms of resistance and immune escape — the role of the AXL receptor and tumour hypoxia in escape from checkpoint inhibitors, or the mitochondrial metabolic reprogramming of cancer cells.

These results rely on the full range of our experimental approaches — digital pathology and quantitative immunohistochemistry, sequencing (exome, ATAC-seq, RRBS), transcriptomics, CRISPR-Cas9 screening and high-throughput chemogenomics, bioinformatic deconvolution — and on models suited to each question: international multicentre patient cohorts, patient-derived xenografts, transgenic mouse models and zebrafish. Tumour-slice ex vivo cultures, in particular, offer a predictive model for evaluating targeted therapies directly on the patient’s tissue. This work has appeared in leading journals, including Cell, Cancer Cell, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Nature Communications and eLife.

Mastering every one of these steps, Inovarion supports oncology projects from target validation through to drug-candidate optimisation, working closely with academic and industry teams.

Contact an expert · See all publications

Representative publications

  1. Benattia et al. Blood MMP-7 and TNF-α levels as potential prognostic biomarkers for adult pulmonary Langerhans cell histiocytosis. Scientific Reports, 2026. PubMed
  2. Haykal et al. Targeting WEE1 kinase as a therapeutic strategy in ATIP3-deficient breast cancers. Cancer Letters, 2025. Record → · PubMed
  3. Folmont et al. Targeting Aggressive Prostate Carcinoma Cells with Mesothelin-CAR-T Cells. Biomedicines, 2025. Record → · PubMed
  4. Krossa et al. SETDB1 is critically required for uveal melanoma growth and represents a promising therapeutic target. Cell Death & Disease, 2025. PubMed
  5. Talbot et al. Sonic hedgehog medulloblastomas are dependent on Netrin-1 for survival. Nature Communications, 2025. Record → · PubMed
  6. Groeneveld et al. Proteogenomic Characterization of Bladder Cancer Reveals Sensitivity to Apoptosis Induced by Tumor Necrosis Factor-related Apoptosis-inducing Ligand in FGFR3-mutated Tumors. European Urology, 2024. Record → · PubMed
  7. Shi et al. FGFR3 Mutational Activation Can Induce Luminal-like Papillary Bladder Tumor Formation and Favors a Male Sex Bias. European Urology, 2023. Record → · PubMed
  8. Mlecnik et al. Multicenter International Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer Study of the Consensus Immunoscore for the Prediction of Survival and Response to Chemotherapy in Stage III Colon Cancer. Journal of Clinical Oncology, 2020. Record → · PubMed
  9. Eynde et al. The Link between the Multiverse of Immune Microenvironments in Metastases and the Survival of Colorectal Cancer Patients. Cancer Cell, 2018. Record → · PubMed
  10. Angelova et al. Evolution of Metastases in Space and Time under Immune Selection. Cell, 2018. Record → · PubMed