The Tumour Microenvironment Revolution * 🎯 Spatial Ecotypes, Liquid Biopsies & Immunotherapy 🚀

About this episode

This episode discusses the revolutionary findings in tumour microenvironments and their implications for immunotherapy and liquid biopsies.

🧬 Tumours are not just masses of cells—they are organized ecosystems. A remarkable Nature study by Zhang et al. mapped >10 million spatial transcriptomes across cancers and identified 9 conserved "spatial ecotypes" within the tumour microenvironment. Even more striking: these ecotypes could be detected non-invasively from plasma cell-free DNA using deep learning. Higher SE7/SE8 predicted better immunotherapy outcomes, while SE4 forecast resistance and poorer survival. A powerful step toward blood-based spatial oncology and precision immunotherapy. 🚀🩸🔬 Zhang W, Brown EL, Usmani A, et al. Nature. 2026. doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10452-4

People in this episode

Host: Dr RR Baliga

Topics covered

• tumour microenvironment
• spatial ecotypes
• liquid biopsies
• immunotherapy
• precision oncology

Keywords

• tumour microenvironment
• spatial transcriptomes
• liquid biopsies
• immunotherapy
• deep learning
• precision oncology
• blood-based spatial oncology

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Nature

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