Work Package 1, led by Professor Helen Reeves and Professor Derek Mann

We will handle contracts, ethics, and network meetings, set up the Steering and Biobank Committee, as well as monitor and report on milestones. We manage project communications and oversee the website and project repository.

Central to the success of HUNTER is the development of nationwide network-recruiting patients with early to advanced stage HCC, alongside (A) high quality data collection at diagnosis/staging and follow-up and (B) standardised collection, processing, storage and distribution of tissues that are fit for purpose. To support this, we will oversee the the collation of a previously collected tissues, prospectively collected tissues, and a data resource to enable analysis of the collected samples.

WP1 Team: Professor Quentin Anstee, Professor Derek Manas, Professor Derek Mann (co-lead), Professor Helen Reeves (co-lead), Dr Dina Tiniakos.

HUNTER is supported at Newcastle by: Emily Mavin (Project Manager), Jack Leslie, Ruchi Shukla, Robyn Watson (HUNTER Technician), Misti McCain.

Workpackage 2: Deciphering the immunological landscape of HCC for clinically relevant biomarker detection - led by Professor Josep M Llovet

Professor Llovet and his team at L'Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS) will take their initial discovery of the different existing HCC immune profiles to the next level using a multi-omics (genomics, transcriptomic, and immunomics) approach to analyse HUCC tumours and matched non-tumour tissues including samples both previously collected by IDIBAPS and those of HUNTER partners collected within WP1 and stored in our bio-bank.

They hope to identify distinct immune profiles of HCC tumours that correlate with the different responses of HCC patients to immunotherapies.

WP Team: Professor Josep M Llovet, Dr Roser Pinyol, Dr Catherine Willoughby.

Work Package 3: Preclinical model platform development - led by Professor Owen Sansom and Dr Tom Bird

Dr Bird and the team at The Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre will lead on the creation of preclinical models that more accurately reflect the emerging subtypes of HCC based on molecular classivifaction and associated immune profiles. They will develope in-vivo models to enable the study of immune or combination therapies.

WP3 team:  Professor Vincenzo Barnaba, Dr Tom Bird (Co-lead), Professor Jeff Evans, Rebecca Fulton (Technician, Southampton), Sarah Gough, Alessio Grimaldi, Dr Matt Hoare, Professor Fiona Oakley, Professor Owen Sansom (Co-lead), Dr Ritu Sharma, Professor Marcel Utz, Dr Caroline Wilson.

Workpackage 4: Breaking local immunosuppressive networks in hepatocellular carcinoma - led by Professor Tim Meyer and Professor Mala Maini

Professor Maini and Professor Meyer will lead on the integration of the different WPs, to develop and validate state-of-the-art testing of novel mechanistic and therapeutic insights into the immunotherapy of HCC.

Utilising fresh HCC tissue samples collected in WP1, and molecular targets shortlisted in WP2, WP4 will develop new insights into immunosuppressive networks in HCC, while testing the robustness and application of the models developed in WP3.

The team will interrogate candidate immunosuppressive mediators identified in WP2 and WP4 ex-vivo on patient tissues.

WP4 team: Professor Sergio Abrignani, Professor Stefan Hübscher, Professor Salim Khakoo, Professor Mala Maini (Co-lead), Dr Marc  Martinez-Llordella, Professor Tim Meyer (Co-lead), Professor Gabriele Missale, Dr Joanne O'Rourke, Professor Alberto Sanchez-Fueyo, Dr Shish Shetty, Lahiru Thomas Sooriyabandara.