Prof Marie-Liesse Labat, Division Head | WEHI Researcher Profile

Q: Identification of neoantigens in non-small cell lung cancer

Using human lung tissue samples, we aim to identify recurrent neoantigens present by tumour cells to the immune system. This project uses proteomic and transcriptomic approaches to identify neoantigens and in vitro assay to determine their immunogenicity.

Q: Understanding the interactions between tumour cells and their microenvironment in non-small cell lung cancer

Mechanisms of resistance to immunotherapy include tumour intrinsic and extrinsic factors mediated by the tumour microenvironment. The project aims to characterise the interactions between immune cells and tumour cells in NSCLC to understand resistance mechanisms and propose new targets for the development of therapy. The project combines spatial molecular profiling and in situ imaging analysis with genetic studies in preclinical models of NSCLC and in clinical samples.

Q: Identifying regulators of the antigen presentation machinery in tumour cells

Silencing the antigen presentation machinery is a known mechanism invoked by tumour cells to evade the immune system. Using CRISPR/Cas9 screening approaches, we aim to identify pathways regulating the antigen presentation machinery in lung cancer. Our goal is to identify targets that could be exploited therapeutically to increase tumour cell visibility.

About

Professor Marie-Liesse Asselin-Labat PharmD, PhD, is Joint-Head of the Personalised Oncology division. She completed her PhD at the University Paris XI in 2004 and pursued post-doctoral work at WEHI before starting her independent research program in 2011.

Her lab focuses on studying the interactions between the immune micro-environment and tumour cells in lung cancer. Using spatial multi-omics approaches, she aims to identify targetable pathways to increase antitumour immunity in non-small lung cancer. Her team has shown that the immune environment in which a tumour arises is an important driver of immune evasion mechanisms (Cancer Cell 2023).

Drawing on her expertise in lung cancer biology, the analysis of clinical samples, immune evasion, the spatial analysis of the tumour microenvironment and functional screens, her research aims to increase our understanding of the evolutionary interactions driving immune evasion in lung cancer, and exploit these interactions as therapeutic targets.

Education

Joint appointments

Grants and funding

Publications

Selected publications from Prof Marie-Liesse Labat

Marceaux C, Tarasova I, Batey D, Yokote K, Gayevskiy V, Jain R, Leiwe M, Choux L, Riley L, Ribera NT, Yang E, Hywood J, Christie M, Antippa P, Speed TP, Rogers KL, Phipson B, Asselin-Labat M-L. TNF-⍺-mediated myeloid-instructed CD14+CD4+ T cells are associated with poor survival in lung adenocarcinoma. Cell Reports Medicine. 2026;7(2):10.1016/j.xcrm.2026.102593

How YY, Reyne N, Croughan MK, Cmielewski P, Batey D, Costello LF, Smith R, Ahlers JN, Cholewa M, Kolodziej M, Duerr J, Mall MA, Kitchen MJ, Asselin-Labat M-L, Paganin DM, Donnelley M, Morgan KS. In Vivo 4D X-Ray Dark-Field Lung Imaging in Mice. IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging. 2026;45(1):10.1109/tmi.2025.3595666

Smith R, Reyne N, Batey D, Eikelis N, Asselin-Labat M-L, Donnelley M. Mapping lung cancer ventilation dynamics using functional imaging and lung mechanics. Disease Models & Mechanisms. 2025;18(12):10.1242/dmm.052559

Balasubramanian A, Marceaux C, Kanwal S, Tarasova I, Batey D, Senko C, Asadi K, Yokote K, Palmer J, Christie M, Gunjur A, Arulananda S, Parakh S, Adams D, Phipson B, Grimmond S, Cebon J, Asselin-Labat M-L, John T. Effects of CVA21, an Oncolytic Virus, in Combination with Pembrolizumab on Immunogenicity and the Tumor Microenvironment in Advanced NSCLC: A Phase I/II Trial.Clinical Cancer Research. 2025;31(22):10.1158/1078-0432.ccr-25-1449

M. Bader S, Scherer L, Bhandari R, Motyer AJ, Cooney JP, Mackiewicz L, Dayton M, Sheerin D, V. L. Romero D, Schaefer J, Pang J, Chen S, Schoffer K, Wang L, Jin X, Batey D, Yip RKH, Zaman I, Rajasekhar P, Gartner MJ, Wilcox S, Whitehead L, Georgy SR, Maluenda A, Davidson KC, Allison CC, Bowden R, Brinkmann K, Asselin-Labat M-L, Phipson B, Tanzer MC, Herold MJ, Samson AL, Vince JE, Strasser A, Pellegrini M, Doerflinger M. Non-apoptotic caspase-8 is critical for orchestrating exaggerated inflammation during severe SARS-CoV-2 infection. Nature Communications. 2025;16(1):10.1038/s41467-025-65098-z

Balasubramanian A, Asselin-Labat M-L. Immune evolution in pre-invasive lung adenocarcinoma. Cancer Cell. 2025;43(6):10.1016/j.ccell.2025.04.005

Asselin-Labat M-L, Ruhland MK, Ferris ST. Editorial: Antigen presentation in cancer immune responses. Frontiers in Immunology. 2025;16:10.3389/fimmu.2025.1558249

Leiwe M, Asselin-Labat M-L. The dynamics of the metastatic niche: Lung alveolar type 2 cell reprogramming and cancer cell stemness. Developmental Cell. 2024;59(18):10.1016/j.devcel.2024.07.014

VanderDoes J, Marceaux C, Yokote K, Asselin-Labat M-L, Rice G, Hywood JD. Using random forests to uncover the predictive power of distance-varying cell interactions in tumor microenvironments. PLOS Computational Biology. 2024;20(6):10.1371/journal.pcbi.1011361

Bhuva DD, Tan CW, Salim A, Marceaux C, Pickering MA, Chen J, Kharbanda M, Jin X, Liu N, Feher K, Putri G, Tilley WD, Hickey TE, Asselin-Labat M-L, Phipson B, Davis MJ. Library size confounds biology in spatial transcriptomics data. Genome Biology. 2024;25(1):10.1186/s13059-024-03241-7