Grant: Doctoral Award - Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarships

Pancreatic cancer is the 4th leading cause of cancer death in Canada. Pancreatic cancer is known as a silent killer as there are no recognizable symptoms or effective treatments. Being overweight and having type 2 diabetes are risk factors for pancreatic cancer, and both conditions are increasing in the general population. However, it is not clear how obesity and diabetes are connected to pancreatic cancer. Insulin is the hormone that the body uses to control blood sugar levels and people who don't make enough develop diabetes. However, insulin can also be too high, and it has been shown that excess insulin between meals could be a factor linking obesity and diabetes to pancreatic cancer. Many studies showed a high level of insulin is associated with higher cancer incidence and death, especially from pancreatic cancer. Even for healthy weight people, the chances of dying from cancer is higher in those with high insulin levels. Whether the high levels of insulin are causing the cancer is an important but unanswered question. The goal of my Ph.D. project is to directly test the cause and effect relationship between insulin and pancreatic cancer. This may help us understand the root causes of pancreatic cancer better and provide new insight into possible ways to prevent and treat it. The Johnson lab has developed special strains of mice that have controlled insulin secretion. Through comparing cancer development in mice having different insulin levels, we can test if high insulin itself can promote pancreatic cancer. Similarly, we have designed mice that are engineered not to respond to insulin in the potential cancer cells, so we can also test if insulin is acting directly on pancreatic cancer. This study may not only provide new targets in anticancer therapy but also may have implications to prevent and treat pancreatic cancer since there are diets and available drugs that can reduce circulating insulin in people.