HUNTER includes 11 collaborating centres in UK, Spain and Italy, working towards understanding the roles of liver immune environment that enables and promotes the development and progression of Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC).  HCC is the commonest primary liver cancer and mortality attributed to it is rising dramatically in Europe.  Immunotherapies have the potential to change that, but emerging data suggests that they (checkpoint inhibitors presently) only work for about 15% of patients. We want to identify novel approaches, but also to understand how to predict response, monitor response and switch non-responders into responders. 

We hope to do this by:

1. The creation of an HCC-specific network of outstanding clinicians and scientists.
2. The first HCC focused PhD training scheme for scientists and clinicians.
3. An integrated genomic immunophenotype classification of HCC, using shared archival tissues.
4. A high quality prospective HCC tissue collection- standardised, including all etiologies, fit to deliver HUNTER goals (model development, ‘living’ tissues analyses, sharing with community).
   1. A suite of novel, more relevant preclinical models that recreate HCC and its microenvironment.
   2. High-dimensional technology platforms (e.g. immune-profiling, RNA-sequencing and metabolomics) for the interrogation of HCC-immune cross-talk mechanisms.
   3. A web-based data sharing platform for the wider research community.
   4. An educational website to share discoveries with our academic, patients and public communities.