ELCC 2017 | Genetic evolution of NSCLC

Charles Swanton, FRCP, BSc, PhD, from the Francis Crick Institute, London, UK gives an overview of the genomic basis of squamous and adenocarcinoma non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and how this can be exploited in future immunotherapy strategies. Prof. Swanton provides the example of tobacco exposure and how it can cause somatic point mutations that occur in early tumor evolution. As the tumor evolves, events such as genomic doubling and chromosomal instability can occur resulting in a vast number of clonal and sub-clonal alterations. This complexity can include somatic copy number aberrations, resulting in subsequent rearrangement of large-scale genomic events. On the other hand, large numbers of coding mutations could be exploited by encouraging an immune response to these mutations, which are present in every tumor cell. This interview was recorded at the annual meeting of the European Lung Cancer Conference (ELCC) 2017, Geneva, Switzerland.