This October, our Mac4Me partners from the University of Helsinki attended the Scandinavian Symposium on Translational Pathology 2025 in Bergen, Norway (SCANPATH). This event, which is a collaboration between academic and industrial partners across the Nordic countries, aims to unite researchers using pathological techniques and analysis methods to improve patient diagnosis and treatment. As part of Mac4Me, DC Sidney van der Zande and academic supervisor Teijo Pellinen travelled to Bergen to show their work on the use of multiplex immunofluorescence (mIF) in cancer. Multiplex immunofluorescence is a lab-based technique to visualise specific proteins in tissue samples. By measuring where proteins are expressed, we can discover where different types of cells, such as immune cells, are located with respect to the cancer cells and what this means for the patient.
Sidney presented her Mac4Me project plans in the form of a poster. In this project, she focuses on the analysis of mIF digital images of different cancer types. By improving the way in which we analyse images from the microscope, we can draw more accurate conclusions about the data that we have. In the Mac4Me project, she aims to develop an analysis method that can be applied to all cancers, providing valuable data about the spatial landscape of every tumour. This information can then be used to guide clinicians in their treatment decisions, ensuring every patient gets the treatment that fits them best.
Teijo Pellinen was invited as a keynote speaker at the event, where he gave a talk highlighting the importance of mIF in cancer research. His group has developed an affordable and accurate method to perform mIF on many samples at the same time, which greatly increases the number of cancer samples that can be analysed. He showed several past studies performed by his group, which all aim to discover how the spatial layout of cells within a tumour impacts patient diagnosis, prognosis and response to immunotherapies. Within Mac4Me, we aim to use these methods to better understand how metastasis differs from the primary tumour and how we can use this knowledge to design more effective therapies.
This symposium provided a great opportunity for our Mac4Me partners to learn more about pathology in cancer, and also to spread awareness about metastatic cancer. We want to thank the organisers for hosting such a great event. The team at the University of Helsinki is glad to be able to host this event next year, and we are looking forward to more great discussions and scientific research!
