Visitor Seminar - Prof. Iannis Aifantis

Join the Tzelepis Group as they host this Visitor Seminar on Friday 26th September 2025 in the JCBC Lecture Theatre at 1pm.

Speaker: Prof. Iannis Aifantis, Hermann M. Biggs Professor of Pathology and Chair of the Department of Pathology at NYU Langone Health, USA.

Talk title: “The geography of acute leukemia: lessons from single cell and spatial profiling”

Abstract:

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a blood cancer with poor survival outcomes. In the acute setting, respiratory failure occurs frequently due to leukemia infiltration of the lungs. Underlying mechanisms remain unexplored and therapeutic interventions are only empiric. Here, we map the landscape of the AML lung microenvironment at both spatial and single-cell resolution. We show that inflammatory responses are triggered, as a part of an extensive remodeling of the lung stroma and immune microenvironment. Tumor cell infiltration impairs lung integrity and function; however, steroid treatment significantly slows down inflammation and lung infiltration. Moreover, our studies help us identify surface molecules, triggered by inflammatory response that can be therapy targets in AML.

Additionally, our studies contrast such leukemic infiltrates to the formation of myeloid sarcoma, a distinct subtype of AML that is found in 5-10% of patients where myeloid blasts form solid tumor-like, invasive masses in extramedullary sites, including the lungs. MS is a heterogeneous disease with poor survival outcomes and MS patients are excluded from AML clinical trials, making the introduction of novel therapies a clinical emergency.

We will describe here a large mapping effort that includes extensive transcriptomic, proteomic, genomic and spatial analysis of a large number of myeloid sarcomas. Also, we present the development of novel early detection approaches and the identification of drug regiments that directly target myeloid sarcoma growth in vivo.