On the sidelines of the World Conference on Lung Cancer (WCLC 2025) in Barcelona, members of the national COALA network (Cure Oncogene-Addicted Lung Adenocarcinoma) gathered to review the progress of their work.
COALA: A national network for lung cancer research
The COALA project is a multidisciplinary national network, led by Toulouse University Hospital and funded by the French National Cancer Institute (INCa). Its mission is to improve the prognosis of patients with oncogene-addicted lung cancers. Launched in April 2024 for a five-year period, the project brings together 15 teams and is structured around six work packages.
The network promotes data sharing, fosters collaboration between clinicians, pathologists, and molecular biologists, and also involves patients through initiatives such as the Colloque INSPIRE à Plein Poumons, which helps make research more accessible and participatory.
Professor Paul Hofman presents the HER2 project
During the meeting, Professor Paul Hofman, Director of the RespirERA institute, presented the HER2 project, which aims to harmonize the evaluation of this biomarker in lung cancer.
Key points:
- Scientific objective: Compare mutations, amplifications, and protein expression of HER2 to better assess its relevance in lung cancer.
- Methods: NGS, FISH, and IHC, combined with artificial intelligence to improve the reliability of analyses.
- Challenges: Heterogeneous staining and discrepancies depending on biopsy type; HER2 in lung cancer differs from what is observed in breast, colorectal, or gastric cancers.
- Perspectives: Expand the cohort, standardize scoring across centers, and generate robust data to support future clinical trials.
A call for participation has been launched to COALA’s partner centers to enrich the cohort and strengthen the statistical power of analyses.
More information about the COALA project: www.coala-lung.org
