Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

For pancreatic cancer, the rate of diagnosis is almost similar to the rate of mortality because in majority of patients, tumor is discovered in the late stages when it has spread throughout the pancreas. This aggressive behavior of pancreatic cancer gives rise to resistance to conventional treatment approaches. Therefore, there is an urgent need for development of novel treatment strategies against this devastating disease. In this project, novel therapeutic approach through targeting a specific protein in pancreatic cancer cells will be investigated. We have identified a protein which is overexpressed in pancreatic tumors and inhibition of this protein by specific inhibitors in cell lines models of pancreatic cancer results in cancer cell death. Also, reduction of tumor volume and metastasis in animal models of pancreatic cancer treated by FDA approved inhibitor confirm our previous finding. Regarding to various experiments in cell line and mouse models of pancreatic cancer, we concluded that this protein could be an appropriate target for treatment of pancreatic cancer. Currently there is no effective treatment against pancreatic cancer, and vast majority of patients have tumors that develop resistance to systemic therapy thus, our results may help develop a new targeted therapy against pancreatic cancer.