Kratz Lab Research
Research
Investigating Genetic and Immunological Mechanisms Driving Early-Stage, Surgically Resectable Thoracic Malignancies
The lab is investigating both the genetic as well as the immunological landscapes of early-stage high-risk tumors. Using the latest DNA / RNA sequencing and gene expression techniques combined with a bioinformatics-driven systems biology approach, the lab is comparing the different features of low- vs. high-risk early-stage lung cancer in order to gain a better understanding of the genetic nature of high-risk stage I lung cancer. The lab also utilizes cutting-edge immunological profiling techniques to investigate immune responses generated by certain patients that nurture high-risk disease.
We are focusing on early-stage thoracic malignancies for three reasons.
- Early- stage tumors are high-yield research subjects as they are more homogenous and less complex than late-stage tumors.
- Patients with early-stage but high-risk disease are more likely to be cured by targeted interventions than patients with regional or metastatic late-stage disease.
- Despite their deadly nature, very few clinician-scientists target early-stage thoracic malignancies. Most interventions and clinical trials are designed for patients with late-stage disease, leaving a very large underserved population of patients with early-stage, yet deadly disease.
Identifying Genetic and Immunological Targets for Novel Interventions in High Risk Early Stage Lung Cancer
The lab will leverage new new research discoveries to identify potential genetic and immunological targets of novel interventions such as biomarker-directed therapies, novel drugs and new immune-based therapies. Identification of these biomarkers and targets will allow the delivery of post-surgical interventions that patients with high-risk early-stage thoracic malignancies urgently need.
Increasing risk of recurrence is associated with increasing tumor mutation burden
Copy number alterations and mutations are distributed throughout the genome in recurrent lung adenocarcinomas
Heatmap analysis demonstrates depletion of adaptive immune cell populations in recurrence lung adenocarcinomas
scRNA-seq analysis reveals twenty distinct immune cell populations in stage I lung adenocarcinomas