The program will place particular emphasis on the interaction between theory, research, and practice around the problem-based approach. It will include:

1. tutorials
2. theoretical and technical courses, taught by local professors and
3. practical workshops organized in small groups in local laboratories to allow students perform experimental manipulation and analysis of the experimental data.

Guest speakers will punctuate the program by giving both seminars presenting the state of the art of spatial omics as well as in-depth research seminars in the different modules.

The physical mobility part will be running from 7 to 11 July 2025 in Marseille, France. The 5-day intensive summer school will introduce, in modules, spatial omics technologies and how they are shaping the future of immunotherapy:

• a general introductory module which will provide participants with an overview of the history and development of spatial omics in the context of cancer and immunology research,
• a general technological module which will present the principles and techniques which will be developed during the practical workshops,
• a module on spatial transcriptomics,
• a module on spatial proteomics,
• a module on spatial metabolism,
• a computational and statistical module.

These technologies bring together different techniques allowing omics data to be superimposed on tissue images for the study and analysis of biological molecules and their location in a tissue where the original spatial context is maintained. 

*See program attached.

The virtual part of the program will take place between 1 February - 6 July 2025 and will consist of an EU module “New techniques in proteomics, genomic imaging and cytometry” with an asynchronous format. Students will be able to follow the courses remotely via Zoom before July 06, 2025.

Also, during a period of 15 days, preceding the physical part, a Moodle platform will be made available to students for the introduction of mini-research projects, the “Spatial omics challenges”, as part of the active pedagogical implementation, that the students will present during the physical part once the courses and workshops completed.

Students will work in groups of 5, with research articles provided by the teachers. Each group will be led by an AMU or CIVIS teacher-researcher. Together they will answer "How to design an experimental plan using a given omics technique to answer a given biological question".