Tissues are made up of cells surrounded by a complex and site specific 3D network of extracellular matrix. Emerging multi-omic technologies provide high resolution information that allows us to deconstruct the cellular and matrix components of all human tissues, to map their organization into spatially distinct local neighbourhoods, and to reconstruct the bidirectional conversations between cells and their microenvironment that dictate homeostatic tissue structure and function.

Understanding how this dialogue changes in disease, and in particular within the tumor microenvironment, reveals a rich source of novel, tractable, therapeutic targets with which to alter the immune axis, preventing tumor subversion of host defence and re-instating tumor-destructive inflammatory programmes.