White adipose tissue (WAT) is a central organ of lipid and glucose metabolism that impacts systemic energy homeostasis. WAT actively senses nutritional changes and accordingly stores extra energy in the form of triglycerides or supplies nutrients to other organs.

Also, WAT regulates whole-body energy metabolism by communicating locally and with distant tissues by secreting signaling molecules such as adipokines, lipokines, metabolites, and exosomes. In obesity, multiple insults promote aberrant gene expression in WAT and lead to WAT dysfunction. Obesity is one of the major risk factors for the development of metabolic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes, and atherosclerosis as well as cancer.

Accordingly, significant advances have been made over the past few decades in the understanding of obesity-induced aberrant WAT remodeling and its pathophysiology concerning obesity-related metabolic disorders. In this presentation, I will discuss the heterogeneity of adipose tissue and energy homeostasis with crosstalk between multiple cell types.

Dr Anne Rios will present a dynamic 3D imaging and integrated transcriptomics platform; BEHAV3D5, that has been developed to exploit immune-organoid co-cultures for understanding and improving the dynamic mode-of-action of engineered T cells in a patient personalized manner. Applied to various solid tumor types modeled with patient derived organoids and emerging T cell therapies, BEHAV3D revealed a high heterogeneity in targeting efficacy and functional behavior. Combined with a module of Behavior-guided sc transcriptomics, they could identify the gene signature of the most potent ‘serial killer’ T cells as well define combinatorial treatment to prime immunotherapy-mediating killing. Thus, BEHAV3D holds promise for improving dynamic solid tumor-targeting of T cell immunotherapies at patient population scale.

Over the years Dr. Rios’ research interests have focused on advancing 3D imaging technologies to explore developmental processes, stem cell biology and cancer progression. As tenured group leader and head of the imaging center at the Princess Máxima Center for pediatric oncology and principal investigator of the Oncode cancer institute of excellence in the Netherlands, her research direction has now centered towards understanding and improving cancer immunotherapies. She leads an interdisciplinary team with a strong emphasis on technological advancements, combining organoid technology, tissue imaging, and vision-based multi-omics to identify new therapeutic targets and factors that influence treatment outcomes for pediatric tumors and breast cancer.