Research
Breakthroughs
A University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa research team led by Youping Deng, PhD, of the John A. Burns School of Medicine and UH Cancer Center, has received a National Institutes of Health R01 grant approximately $3.26 million over five years to address critical unmet needs in lung cancer immunotherapy.
Funded by the National Cancer Institute, the project is titled “Novel Biomarkers for Predicting and Improving Immunotherapy Response in Lung Cancer.” The research will focus on developing more accurate methods to predict which patients will benefit from immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy and identifying new therapeutic strategies to overcome treatment resistance. The project will run from August 1, 2026, through July 31, 2031.
Immune checkpoint inhibitors, or ICIs, have transformed the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer by helping the immune system recognize and attack tumor cells. However, many patients do not respond, and some patients who initially benefit later develop resistance. Current biomarkers are not sufficiently accurate to reliably determine who will respond, leaving an important unmet need for better patient-selection tools and new treatments for resistant tumors.
“Immune checkpoint inhibitors have significantly improved lung cancer treatment, but resistance remains a major challenge,” Deng said. “The biomarkers currently used in clinical practice are not accurate enough to identify all patients who will benefit from immunotherapy. Our team has discovered a new biomarker that may more effectively predict treatment response, as well as a promising therapeutic target that could help overcome ICI resistance. This NIH R01 grant will allow us to validate these discoveries and move them closer to clinical application.”
The project will address this unmet need through two connected research goals. The team will first validate its newly identified biomarker to determine whether it can improve the selection of patients for immunotherapy. Researchers will then investigate the mechanisms underlying ICI resistance and evaluate the newly identified molecular target as a potential strategy for restoring or improving treatment response.
By combining a predictive biomarker with a potential therapeutic approach, the project aims to help physicians select treatments more precisely while creating new options for patients whose tumors do not respond to existing immunotherapies.
Deng is a professor and director of the Bioinformatics Core Facility at JABSOM. He is also a full member of the UH Cancer Center Biology Program and Co-Director of the UH Cancer Center Genomics and Bioinformatics Shared Resource. His research integrates bioinformatics, cancer genomics, molecular biology and translational medicine to develop clinically relevant approaches for cancer diagnosis and treatment.
The research team also includes Shaoqiu Chen, PhD, who will participate in computational analysis and experimental validation, and PhD student Li Ma, who will contribute to biomarker development, mechanistic studies and translational research.
Drs. Owen Chan and Xin Chen from the University of Hawaiʻi Cancer Center are co-investigators in the proposal. The award strengthens UH, JABSOM, and the UH Cancer Center’s growing research programs in cancer immunotherapy, precision oncology and biomedical data science while providing advanced research and training opportunities for early-career investigators and graduate students in Hawaiʻi.
NIH Award Number: R01CA316647
More information about Dr. Deng and his research:
About Dr. Youping Deng
UH Cancer Center news about Dr. Deng
Full list of Cancer Biology Program members