Grant: Operating Grant: Sparks Grant - General Pool

Pancreatic cancer has a dismal prognosis, with a 5 year survival of 10%. Early detection and improved survival as a result of screening of high-risk individuals illustrates the benefits of expanded surveillance for a broader population (PMID:31558858). Immune evasion and immunosuppression are fundamental to pancreatic cancer development. Immunosuppressive immune cells are elevated in the circulating blood of patients with precancerous and advanced pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) (PMC6594197), and peripheral blood assays of cytokines that typify cancer cell immunomodulation are being studied for detection of pancreatic cancer (PMC1866873). Epigenomic profiles confer identity and function of various immune cell types. DNA methylation in peripheral blood distinguish colorectal cancer patients from healthy controls and predict cancer risk, suggesting surveillance of blood cell DNA methylation may represent a minimally invasive screening method utilizing an accessible input DNA source (PMID:27453436, PMID:32711505). DNA methylation profiling of circulating blood cells from patients with PDAC supports the potential utility of blood-based epigenomic surviellence for early detection (PMID:21455317). The BC Generations Project (BCGP) is a prospectively collected cohort of 30,000 healthy British Columbians with detailed health, diet, lifestyle, medical and family history data, collected along with baseline blood samples. 42 BCGP participants subsequently developed metastatic PDAC, a number of which have post-diagnosis tissue and blood stored at BC Gastrointestinal Biobank, or were enrolled in the PanGen and/or Personalized OncoGenomics (POG) Program at BC Cancer and have undergone next generation whole-genome (NGS) and transcriptome sequencing of peripheral blood and metastatic tumour samples.