Every tumor is unique. This makes it difficult to find the most effective therapy for treatment. The Tumor Profiler Center of the University Hospital Zurich, the University of Zurich, ETH Zurich and the University Hospital Basel has now carried out a study in which nine different molecular biological technologies were used to precisely measure the properties of the tumor in four weeks and enable a precise treatment decision. The study is the first of its kind in the world.
Doctors base their decisions on established guidelines when selecting the appropriate therapy. Thanks to these guidelines, significantly better treatment results have been achieved in recent years, especially in the case of melanoma. However, even within these standard therapies, there are often several treatment options, and it is not always clear which therapy is the most likely to be successful for a particular patient. It becomes even more difficult when standard therapies have been exhausted and there is little scientific evidence on how to continue treatment.
Know each tumor down to the individual cell
Until now, cancer therapies have been determined primarily on the basis of the tissue where the tumor originated and its genetic characteristics. The Tumor Profiler project, which has been ongoing since 2018, is investigating how new molecular biological methods can help improve and expand treatment options for patients beyond standard therapies. To do this, the researchers take advantage of the fact that every tumor is unique right down to the individual cells. Nine technologies are used to analyze a tumor at the individual cell level. The information obtained in this way creates a comprehensive picture of the biological processes in the tumor, from DNA to RNA and proteins. This knowledge should then make it possible to determine the most effective treatment for the individual patient from the available forms of therapy, especially medications. This data-driven approach also makes it possible to include drugs used to treat other cancers in the evaluation, thus broadening the range of treatment options on a case-by-case basis.
In a first phase of the Tumor Profiler project, it was investigated which molecular biological technologies provide relevant information for treatment and showed that such comprehensive analyses are feasible and that the necessary processing of the enormous amounts of data is possible. The next step was to examine how tumor profiling can be implemented in practice.
First study with nine molecular biological methods and practical application
In a prospective, multicenter observational study, a research group of over 100 scientists from the University Hospital Zurich, the University of Zurich, ETH Zurich, the University Hospital Basel and Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd investigated whether this approach is feasible in the hospital and whether it offers advantages. The focus was on how long it takes for the tumor analysis to be available and how the treating physicians assess the resulting recommendations – two key factors for the successful application of tumor profiling in practice. The tumors of 116 patients were analyzed for this purpose. Individual treatment recommendations were derived from the resulting 43,000 data points or 0.5 terabyte (TB) data per sample. For the first time worldwide, nine molecular biological technologies for profiling were used in parallel in a study and, for the first time, the data collected from these technologies was also used in treatment predictions for the benefit of treating physicians in the clinic.
Rapid analysis and individual treatment recommendations for melanoma
The study was able to show that the recommendations provided by the tumor profiling were available after four weeks and that in 75% of cases, the treating specialists found them helpful for the choice of therapy and provided them with substantial information. "These values and information show us that the recommendations from tumor profiling are available within a reasonable period of time and with tangible and directly implementable benefits for the treating physicians," says Nicola Miglino, research assistant at the Department of Medical Oncology and Hematology at the University Hospital Zurich and lead author of the study.
The USZ Tumor Board, an association of oncology specialists, assessed the tumor profiler data and proposed specific therapies tailored to the study participants based on this information. It was found that patients whose treatment was based on information from the Profiler data responded more often to the therapy than patients who did not participate in the program. "This is an encouraging result that goes beyond our actual goal of the study, but one that still needs to be confirmed in prospective and randomized clinical trials involving more patients," is how Andreas Wicki, Professor of Oncology at the University of Zurich, Deputy Director of the Department of Medical Oncology and Hematology and Co-Director of the Tumor Profiler Center at USZ, summarizes the results. He continues: "This study is a major step toward data-based medicine. It paves the way for new clinical trials that don't test individual drugs, but actually predict the most effective therapy."
Publication:
Nicola Miglino et al. Feasibility of multiomics tumor profiling for guiding treatment of melanoma. Nature Medicine. May 27, 2025. DOI https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-025-03715-6
