Single-Cell T-cell Receptor and Expression Grouped Ontologies (STEGO)

The human immune system, and in turn its response to pathogens, cancer, and other diseases, is governed by a complex interaction between different immune cell types. T cells play a major role in the immune defense as they initiate specific elimination pathways for cancer and infected cells. The rise of single-cell sequencing has opened new doors to study the functional T-cell repertoire by mapping the T-cell subtypes in immune repertoires. However, interpretation of single-cell data is sorely lacking and no methods are available to link T-cell functionalities with their actual pathogenic targets. 

This project aims to leverage single-cell data richness to visualize key interplays between T-cell subtypes, as well as other immune cells. To this end, the team will develop a user-friendly tool to functionally annotate groups of disease relevant T cells within single-cell data that are both clinically relevant and directly actionable. Following identification of the key active T cells, integration with single cell transcriptomics of other immune cell types will support the explanation of their activity. This will aid understanding of the functional immune compartment in different pathologies including cancer, infections and autoimmune disorders.