▌ Intro

October 14, the Department of Science and Technology of Guangdong Province issued a document to approve the initiation of major project (planned) for basic and applied research for the year 2019. The approval covered 13 science projects and will launch special funds up to 560 million yuan in total to support scientific research and discovery.

Shenzhen Bay Laboratory (SZBL) was among the awardees to receive special funds, according to the document. The approved project applied by SZBL will be led by ZHAN Qimin, the SZBL Director, to conduct study on microenvironment heterogeneity in the recurrence, metastasis and therapeutic resistance of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC), and explore therapeutic strategy for ECSS.

Study on Tumor Microenvironmental Heterogeneity, Esophageal

Squamous Carcinoma Recurrence and Metastasis, and Relevant Therapeutic Tolerance

▌ Project Overview

This project is initiated by Shenzhen Bay Laboratory (SZBL), and will unite research efforts from Peking University, Cancer Hospital Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Sichuan University and the City University of Hong Kong, to study on the molecular mechanism of esophageal squamous carcinoma recurrence, metastasis, and therapeutic tolerance, and to explore relevant therapeutic strategy for the disease.

▌ Research Background

Esophageal squamous carcinoma is an endemic disease amongst the most common cancers in China. As conservative treatment surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy progress with times, it is by so far, however, lack of highly effective target therapeutics for this carcinoma. This situation faced by our current therapeutics can be caused by one of the important factors that keeps challenging clinical trials - the tumor heterogeneity. To tackle these difficulties and address the unmet needs in the field will call for advancement on both the theory and techniques for esophageal squamous carcinoma diagnostics classification, which helps to further improve personalized treatment and therapeutic outcomes on the affected population and will lead development of precision medicine to a significant level.

▌Project Importance

This project will help to generate a clear-cut understanding of the function and molecular mechanism of tumor microenvironmental heterogeneity in the recurrence, metastasis and therapeutic tolerance of esophageal squamous carcinoma as well as exploring biological signaling pathways as key factors in leading solution to the disease. This will highly contribute to the discovery of new tumor markers in esophageal squamous carcinoma and will provide well-grounded theory for the precision treatment on tumor microenvironmental heterogeneity of esophageal squamous carcinoma.