Friday, July 1, 2022
SCIENMAG: Latest Science and Health News
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME PAGE
  • BIOLOGY
  • CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS
  • MEDICINE
    • Cancer
    • Infectious Emerging Diseases
  • SPACE
  • TECHNOLOGY
  • CONTACT US
  • HOME PAGE
  • BIOLOGY
  • CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS
  • MEDICINE
    • Cancer
    • Infectious Emerging Diseases
  • SPACE
  • TECHNOLOGY
  • CONTACT US
No Result
View All Result
Scienmag - Latest science news from science magazine
No Result
View All Result
Home SCIENCE NEWS Medicine & Health

UC San Diego health researchers join pancreatic cancer ‘dream team’

November 9, 2015
in Medicine & Health
0
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

IMAGE

In an effort to advance research on one of the deadliest forms of cancer, University of California, San Diego School of Medicine researchers Andrew Lowy, MD, and Tannishtha Reya, PhD, have been recruited for their expertise in preclinical modeling, clinical trials and stem cell biology to join a "dream team" of international pancreatic cancer researchers.

The three-year, $12-million effort, sponsored by Stand Up To Cancer, Cancer Research UK and The Lustgarten Foundation, will pursue a three-pronged strategy to better understand and reset so-called "super-enhancers" that may be abnormally active in pancreatic tumors. Super-enhancers are bits of DNA that can cause over-expression of genetic signals, fueling cancer cell growth.

"What's unique about the grant is that it's a different approach to the disease," said Lowy, chief of the Division of Surgical Oncology at Moores Cancer Center at UC San Diego Health. "The idea being that you can reprogram pancreatic cancer cells to a different state so they can be less aggressive or you can create new vulnerabilities that can be exploited with combination drug therapies."

One prong of the dream team will develop new technologies to analyze pancreatic tumor super-enhancers to better understand how they exploit normal regenerative processes. A second prong will investigate how pancreatic cancer cells obtain nutrients from nearby normal cells while evading detection by the immune system. A third prong will involve clinical trials with a new class of drugs targeting super-enhancers. The trials are slated to begin in the first year of funding.

Leading the international effort are Daniel D. Von Hoff, MD, physician-in-chief at the Translational Genomics Research Institute in Phoenix; Gerard I. Evan, PhD, professor and chair of the Department of Biochemistry at University of Cambridge and Ronald M. Evans, PhD, director of the Gene Expression Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and an adjunct professor at UC San Diego.

Lowy and Reya have already begun laying the foundation needed for the collaborative research. Lowy has developed ways to make tumors more sensitive to chemotherapy drugs and his work with preclinical modeling will allow for simultaneous testing of treatments in a clinical trial setting.

Reya, professor in the departments of Pharmacology and Medicine, studies how stem cell signals can be subverted to drive cancer progression and therapy resistance. She has developed models that allow detection of therapy-resistant cells, which can often trigger relapse and recurrence. With Lowy and others, Reya will use these models to test therapies that may be able to eradicate drug-resistant cancer cells and help ensure a more durable disease remission. The dream team approach, said Reya, provides "a remarkable opportunity to integrate the molecular understanding of the signals that drive pancreatic cancer growth with development of new therapies targeting these signals."

Pancreatic cancer is a rare disease, making up only two percent of all new cancer cases, but it is the fourth leading cause of cancer death in the United States. According to the National Cancer Institute (NCI), approximately 30 percent of patients have locally advanced disease and 50 percent have disease that has already spread.

Surgery is the only treatment option, but because of metastasis less than 20 percent of patients are candidates for this treatment and even when surgery is successful, it only provides long-term, disease-free survival in 3 to 4 percent of patients. Part of the problem is that the causes of pancreatic cancer are not well understood and science has been unable to apply advances in cancer therapy to pancreatic cancer.

"Pancreatic cancer is a recalcitrant disease," said Scott Lippman, MD, director of Moores Cancer Center. "It can be beat, but it will require a massive global team effort, from bench to bedside and back. This dream team represents that effort and we are excited to be part of it."

###

Share25Tweet16Share4ShareSendShare
  • nTIDE May 2022 COVID Update: Unemployment Trends for People with and without Disabilities

    nTIDE May 2022 COVID Update: Uncertainty about inflation tempers good news for people with disabilities

    87 shares
    Share 35 Tweet 22
  • A closer look into the emergence of antibiotic resistance in bioaerosols and its monitoring

    67 shares
    Share 27 Tweet 17
  • Wildfires may have sparked ecosystem collapse during Earth’s worst mass extinction

    65 shares
    Share 26 Tweet 16
  • Hidden in caves: Mineral overgrowths reveal ‘unprecedented’ sea level rise

    65 shares
    Share 26 Tweet 16
  • Scientists find greenhouse gas warming likely cause of industrial-era sea level rise

    64 shares
    Share 26 Tweet 16
  • Organoids reveal similarities between myotonic dystrophy type 1 and Rett syndrome

    65 shares
    Share 26 Tweet 16
ADVERTISEMENT

About us

We bring you the latest science news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Latest NEWS

nTIDE May 2022 COVID Update: Uncertainty about inflation tempers good news for people with disabilities

COVID-19 fattens up our body’s cells to fuel its viral takeover

Native American women, reproductive politics and forced sterilizations

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 190 other subscribers

© 2022 Scienmag- Science Magazine: Latest Science News.

No Result
View All Result
  • HOME PAGE
  • BIOLOGY
  • CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS
  • MEDICINE
    • Cancer
    • Infectious Emerging Diseases
  • SPACE
  • TECHNOLOGY
  • CONTACT US

© 2022 Scienmag- Science Magazine: Latest Science News.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
Posting....