Objective

Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma (HNSCC) is the 6^th commonest malignancy worldwide and survival depends on, among other things, the tumour aetiology (alcohol and tobacco or human papillomavirus [HPV]) and density of tumour infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) within the tumour. The established clinical pathway for diagnosis and treatment of HNSCC lends itself as a model to evaluate the effects of immunotherapy on the tumour microenvironment: Patients have a window of approximately 3-4 weeks between diagnosic biopsy and surgical excision. We have shown that the immunological transcriptomic signature is stable within different parts of the tumour, and between different time points, supporting the use of transcriptomics to understand the influence of novel immunotherapy agents in window studies. We are using this window study model to quantify immunological change as a result of selective PI3Kδ inhibition (AMG319) and in response to a HPV16 mRNA vaccine (HARE40).