Pancreatic cancer: study of tumor biology and EMT with testing of corresponding drugs in a relevant pre-clinical model

Pancreatic adenocarcinoma is distinct to most other tumors because of its very bad prognosis, limited treatment options (systemic gemcitabine or FOLFIRINOX), little clinical efficacy and no improvement in treatment over recent years. The aims are: 1) Study the molecular pathways and therapeutic targets specific for pancreatic cancer. 2) Testing of mechanism based complementary drug combinations in patient-derived tumor xenograft models (PDTX). Based on the previous research we will focus on hypoxia and EMT-molecular mechanisms. We will decipher pancreatic cancer biology, aggressiveness and chemoresistance using cell based models of EMT induction and of inhibition/reversal using HIF-targeting drugs (acriflavine, berberine, EF24). For the translational part, we have selected acriflavine for testing in combination with gemcitabine in different PDTX pancreatic cancer models. Acriflavine has been shown to be active on several mechanisms and its clinical safety data in humans are available.

Keywords:pancreatic cancer

Disciplines:Morphological sciences, Oncology