Lars Forsberg receives ERC Proof of Concept Grant

In the newly funded project TUMORLY, the goal is to develop a user-friendly method for studying the effects of genetic changes directly in tissues, on a cell‑by‑cell basis. Current technologies for this type of analysis, known as spatial omics, are very expensive and difficult to use. As a result, only a few research laboratories worldwide have access to them.

Lars Forsberg and his colleagues now plan to develop a cheaper, faster and more accessible tool that will make this type of spatial analysis possible for many more researchers.

“A long‑term goal is to democratise advanced tissue analysis so that more researchers can carry out these kinds of studies, at a fraction of today’s cost,” says Ammar Zaghlool, researcher and lead scientist on method development in Lars Forsberg’s group.

The project will focus on understanding how loss of chromosome Y (LOY) in different cell types affects disease development, for example in cancer.

“LOY is a very common genetic alteration in men that increases the risk of several common diseases. More than a decade has passed since my discovery that LOY in blood cells increase the risk of disease in men, but it is still unclear how LOY affects different cell types in the case of disease. With the new technology, we hope to map these processes in detail and identify mechanisms that may be important for future diagnosis and treatment,” says Lars Forsberg.

With the ERC grant, the researchers can take a crucial step from idea to practical application. They have shown that the concept works in model systems, and they can now fully develop the method, test it on tumour samples, and demonstrate how LOY and other genetic changes are organised in tissues.

“LOY occurs in both tumour cells and immune cells but we know little about how these changes interact. By mapping and studying LOY in different tissues, we hope to learn more about why men more often develop cancer and other common diseases at a younger age than women,” says Forsberg.

The researchers also hope to further develop the technology so that it can eventually be used by research laboratories and clinics to study a wide range of disease mechanisms – not only LOY – and be broadly applied in both research and diagnostics.