Investigating immune clusters in oesophageal cancer

Marjan’s grant is funded by Cure Cancer, through the Priority-driven Collaborative Cancer Research Scheme.

Marjan is based at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research.

What is Oesophageal Adenocarcinoma?

Oesophageal adenocarcinoma is a cancer of the oesophagus (commonly called the food pipe) that connects the mouth to the stomach. It is more common in men than women and is linked to being overweight and having acid reflux. The incidence of oesophageal adenocarcinoma is rapidly increasing and in Australia, the rates have doubled in the last three decades.

Complete surgical removal is currently the main treatment for Oesophageal Adenocarcinoma cancer. Very few patients benefit from standard chemotherapy and radiotherapy, which offers less than 15% improvement in chances of survival compared to having surgery alone. In addition to this, it is currently impossible to tell which patients will get this survival benefit at diagnosis. This sometimes leads to ineffective or unnecessary treatments that are incredibly taxing.

The research

Dr Marjan and her team will investigate oesophageal tumours with newly emerged technologies. This will enable them to identify novel mutations in the poor outcome patients of oesophageal cancer. It will improve their knowledge of how oesophageal cancer develops, with the results helping them to understand patients who are not currently responding well to their current treatment.

“I am investigating complex mutations of oesophageal adenocarcinoma genomes. To date, it has been reported ~20% of the oesophageal tumours harbour complex mutations. These mutations are responsible for cancer progression and poor patient outcomes.”

One of the reasons oesophageal adenocarcinoma is so hard to treat is the high level of genomic heterogeneity and large structural variances and micro-environments. The trials are looking into researching the genes and characterising the various and complex arrangements of the genes.

Dr Marjan will focus on immune-suppressed tumours which currently have a very low survival rate as they don’t respond to treatment, and hope to uncover treatment for the patients with the poorest prognosis and improve the accuracy of treatment in the future.

Why is cancer research funding so important?

This type of cancer has one of the lowest survival rates of all cancers. Most patients die within five years of their diagnosis as there are few treatment options available. The findings from this research will benefit poor outcome cancer patients to receive improved treatment options according to their tumour types. This new treatment will provide an opportunity for cancer patients to benefit from therapy and therefore experience a better outcome. 

"We will develop an IHC approach to classify these tumours. We will resolve the complex and heterogeneous genomes of OAC to an unprecedented resolution. This may offer therapeutic targets for mono or combination therapies in future"

Being an early career researcher

Marjan shares her thoughts on the importance of Early Career Researcher grants:

“The greatest hurdle for early career researchers is to establish themselves in the field. They need to publish, apply for grants without a competitive track record compared to mid-career researchers. This shows the importance of organisations such as Cure Cancer supporting early career researchers.”

About Dr Marjan Naeini

Marjan is a computational biologist at Garvan Institute of Medical Research, Sydney, Australia. In her spare time, she enjoys watching movies with her partner and gathering with friends. She also loves to swim and has the travel bug (pandemic permitting). Marjan has also managed to achieve a lot in her field as an early career researcher:

• Australian Skin and Skin Cancer Research Centre (ASSC) Early Career Researcher Award 2019

• The Clinical Oncology Society of Australia (COSA) Annual Scientific Meeting 2020, Best of Best Oral Award in the Best of the Best Basic & Translational Research 

• Cancer Australia Priority-driven Cancer Research Scheme grant application 2021

“Oesophageal adenocarcinoma is an aggressive cancer, as most patients will not survive for more than 5 years. We need to find better ways to treat patients.”

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