Webinar: Expanding neoantigen discovery with COSMIC

Date: 12 September 2024 | 5 minute read

The COSMIC logo and the Wellcome Sanger Institute logos in dark blue. They are in front of a white background with faded blue squares.

Expanding neoantigen discovery with COSMIC - 1hr 0min 37sec

Sign up for the webinar here

Speakers

Kyle Nilson, PhD, Field Software Trainer, Qiagen Digital Insights (QDI)

Rebecca Steele, PhD, Clinical Curator for COSMIC Actionability, Wellcome Sanger Institute

Jennifer Wilding, PhD, Scientist Curator for COSMIC, Wellcome Sanger Institute

Summary

Neoantigens are among the newest promising targets for cancer treatment. Unlike tumor-associated antigens, neoantigens are produced only by tumor cells. These unique molecular markers are highly visible to the immune system, making them ideal for personalised immunotherapies. They may also be able to predict both tumor survival prognosis and immune checkpoint blockade responses. Neoantigens are presented by human leukocyte antigen class I molecules (HLA-I) to T cells, providing an ideal pathway for detection by shotgun proteomics. To identify these elusive targets, scientists often rely on whole exome sequencing (WES)-derived data. However, this approach can miss rare or low-frequency mutations, especially in cancers with a low tumor mutational burden (TMB). 

The Catalogue of Somatic Mutations in Cancer (COSMIC) can bridge this gap by providing researchers with detailed information about somatic mutations in human cancer. Unlock the full potential of neoantigen-targeted therapies and enhance traditional approaches like WES with our comprehensive, expert-curated knowledge base.

In this webinar, we’ll learn to:

  • Uncover and validate potential neoantigens with a recent peer-reviewed study that uses COSMIC mutation data from human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), a low-TMB cancer
  • Apply the benchmarking results of neoantigen detection performance using HCC-specific variants from COSMIC or DepMap
  • Take full advantage of the breadth and accuracy of COSMIC data with downloaded content and other resources