# Liquid biopsy of the lung to profile lung cancer

> **NIH NIH U01** · FRED HUTCHINSON CANCER RESEARCH CENTER · 2020 · $427,888

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
A tumor biopsy is traditionally performed for lung cancer diagnosis using either bronchoscopy through the airway
or a needle aspiration through the chest wall. Advances in targeted and immune therapies now often require
more tissue for molecular and immune profiling to optimally manage lung cancer. The yield for cancer diagnosis
using modern bronchoscopic tools approaches only 50% across the spectrum of lung tumors biopsied, and the
additional requirement for molecular and immune profiling erodes this yield further. This leads to delayed and
suboptimal care, increased healthcare costs, and increased patient morbidity since patients can often require
multiple procedures to obtain the correct information for treatment. Our group has recently demonstrated that
targeted Bronchoalveolar Lavage (BAL) – or a washing of the lung cancer performed during a procedure – is a
reservoir of genomic and cellular biomarkers in the lung tumor macroenvironment (TMaE). Further, we have
demonstrated that molecular analyses of BAL from the lung TMaE recapitulate cancer biology in the lung tumor
microenvironment (TMiE). While BAL is very safe and routinely performed during bronchoscopy, to date, it is a
pauci-cellular fluid that is of limited clinical utility for cancer diagnosis. Beyond cytology that is low yield, there
are no molecular or cellular assays that are used in the clinic to fully inform providers who treat lung cancer.
Because of this, rigorous attention to how methods of collection, patient host factors and processing of BAL will
alter genomic and high dimensional cell based assays is lacking. Our central hypothesis is: BAL globally
samples the tumor microenvironment (TMiE) to overcome limitations of tumor heterogeneity and is more
sensitive than blood for immunogenomic profiling due to increased quantities of tumor specific
biomarkers. To realize our goal and prove our hypothesis, in depth analysis of the conditions affecting BAL for
high dimensional genome and cell assays is required. Here, we propose studying how basic conditions in the
lung, variations in acquisition of BAL, and storage and processing of BAL affect its utility for comprehensive
genome profiling and analysis of the T cell repertoire. Following identification of key pre-analytic variables, we
propose a standard operating procedure for implementation in observational biomarker and first-in-man clinical
trials to demonstrate the clinical utility of our approach. Proposal success will facilitate the introduction of novel
molecular assays into the clinic that augment extant and developing blood and tumor assays. This approach will
be particularly relevant as we move into the era of precision guided therapies for lung cancer treatment, which
have begun to reduce mortality in even the most advanced stages, over the coming years and decades.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10053675
- **Project number:** 1U01CA253166-01
- **Recipient organization:** FRED HUTCHINSON CANCER RESEARCH CENTER
- **Principal Investigator:** A McGarry Houghton
- **Activity code:** U01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $427,888
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-09-15 → 2025-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10053675

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10053675, Liquid biopsy of the lung to profile lung cancer (1U01CA253166-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10053675. Licensed CC0.

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