Collaborative Science Brings New Approaches to Pancreatic Cancer Treatment

Christine Wilson, cancer survivor, shares her experiences from the Abramson Cancer Center’s 2013- Focus on Pancreatic Cancer Conference. In this blog, she discusses Stand Up To Cancer, and the pancreatic Dream Team at Penn Medicine.

Jeffrey Drebin, MD, PhD

Jeffrey Drebin, MD, PhD, recently spoke about the pancreatic cancer initiative funded by Stand Up To Cancer at the 2nd Focus on Pancreatic Cancer Conference. This grant from Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C) includes scientists and clinicians from Penn, Johns Hopkins and a number of other leading institutions, working together, sharing knowledge and data to develop new treatments for pancreatic cancer. The SU2C grant has led to enrolling over 1,000 patients in clinical trials, with the results of those trials generating new trials that are underway or planned. The SU2C trials are not only multidisciplinary, and multi-institutional, but also translational—meaning that that they are seeking new understanding of the biology and genetics of pancreatic cancer, in order to apply that knowledge to developing new treatments. Promising areas of research include new ways to deliver drugs to cancers, better understanding of the role of neighboring tissue, the stroma, in promoting cancer growth, new approaches to metabolic therapies—those that deprive the cancer cell of needed nutrients, and identifying unique targets on pancreatic cancer cells for which new drugs can be developed.

“We know that pancreatic cancer is an increasing cause of cancer death, and we know that we have not had enough long term survivors of this disease,” says Dr. Drebin, “but we believe that this research will take us to the next stages of treatment, and better outcomes.”

Learn more about Penn Medicine's Pancreatic Cancer Dream Team