This blog was originally posted on the乳腺癌现在博客。

Ansel Lim目前正在医学院的第四年，在他的主管Jabed Iqbal博士和Joe Yeong博士的指导下，triple negative breast cancer在新加坡综合医院的解剖病理学系。

我们跟上了他的胜利形象，他的工作以及他的研究的下一步。

告诉我们您的形象及其背后的研究

I have been studying the role of a specific type of immune cell, known as a瘤-associated macrophage, which has a surprising role in triple negative breast cancer. These macrophages are thought to be involved in actually preventing the immune system from attacking tumour cells and may drive the development of继发性乳腺癌。Our aim is to find out whether we can predict survival outcomes for patients by counting the number of these immune cells present in a triple negative tumour.

在我的图像中，我们可以在中心看到与肿瘤相关的巨噬细胞（红色和黄色）与其他巨噬细胞和称为淋巴细胞的免疫细胞紧密混合，并被肿瘤细胞（彩色蓝色）包围。

The image comes from a tumour sample taken from just one of around 300 patients in our cohort of triple-negative breast cancers. We used a technique called quantitative multiplex immunohistochemistry – which is quite a mouthful to say – to look at each and every one of these samples and find out how many macrophages there are in each sample. We will then run sophisticated statistical tests to work out if there is a relationship between the number of macrophages present and the patient’s chances of survival.

What is quantitative multiplex immunohistochemistry?

该技术建立在一个称为免疫组织化学的完善过程的基础上，该过程使用专门的荧光标记来识别和研究细胞产生的不同蛋白质。在此图像中，我们使用这些荧光标记来寻找七个特定的蛋白质。由于存在这些蛋白质CD68和CD163中的两种，它们在细胞表面上发现，因此与肿瘤相关的巨噬细胞以红色和黄色突出显示。

定量多重免疫化学或计算机辅助免疫化学是下一代免疫组织化学。该技术使研究人员可以同时研究多种蛋白质（常规免疫组织化学的局限性），并使我们能够计算出更精确的特定蛋白质的细胞数量。实际上，这意味着我们可以鉴定出具有更高精度的不同患者肿瘤产生的不同蛋白质。

How does your research have the potential to benefit patients?

我们正在看到巨大的advances being made in the development of immunotherapies for diseases such as melanoma and non-small cell lung cancer. We want to see whether immunotherapies are a viable option for triple negative breast cancer, which is a particularly aggressive form of the disease. In the spirit of personalised medicine, we believe that treatments should only be used if the patient is likely to benefit from them, so it’s essential that we can confirm that the targets of these drugs are present on the patient’s cancer and immune cells.

我们还认为，找出周围和浸润肿瘤的免疫细胞（称为微环境）如何影响生存，长期结局以及可能对免疫疗法的反应影响。因此，我们正在研究免疫微环境，希望我们能在显微镜下的肿瘤外观与肿瘤在患者中的表现之间的关系，当然包括对治疗的反应。

与其他疾病（例如黑色素瘤）相比，使用免疫疗法来治疗三阴性乳腺癌仍然是很早的日子。然而，像我们这样的病理研究可能有一天有助于我们的临床同事合理地选择最有可能从免疫疗法中受益的患者。

您和您的研究的下一步是什么？

最近，我发现巨噬细胞的亚群和整体生存之间存在令人兴奋的关系，因此在接下来的几周中，我将验证这些结果。研究永无止境，问题永远不会停止，答案每次都会越来越近，但是新问题不断出现。

Once I have completed my medical degree, I intend to train in anatomical pathology, after which I would like to pursue formal research training and complete a doctoral degree.

您可以看到更多我们最喜欢的乳腺癌研究图像竞赛的条目在这个博客中。