Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Despite improvements in our understanding of cancer biology and advances in cancer therapies, malignant tumours remain a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in Canada and worldwide. It is estimated that around 4600 Canadians die from pancreatic cancer every year, making it the fourth leading cause of cancer mortality. Regardless of significant advances in the therapies for treating other cancers, pancreatic cancer remains largely incurable. Gene therapy to treat tumours has been limited in the past by poor delivery techniques and undesirable side effects in other parts of the body. Unfortunately, there are no strategies for the treatment of aggressive and fibrotic tumours like pancreatic cancer to prevent its rapid growth and spread. With this in mind, Mr. Matkar along with his supervisor Dr. Leong-Poi, will be studying a unique targeted method to non-invasively deliver genes to treat pancreatic cancer, using tiny bubbles given intravenously coupled with high power ultrasound for transferring genes to tumours. The gene therapy study will be conducted in a clinically relevant well-established animal model of pancreatic cancer. This non-invasive technique would facilitate easy, safe and repeated gene delivery in pancreatic cancer patients, while minimizing side effects. This research will specifically target the process of fibrosis within the tumour with an aim to develop a novel method to treat pancreatic cancer, which if successful, could lead to the development of effective gene therapy that would benefit numerous patients suffering from pancreatic cancer. The ultimate goal of our study is to develop a non-invasive strategy for treating pancreatic cancer using ultrasound-targeted microbubble destruction. We believe our study focus is unique within Canada, and given our expertise in ultrasound-mediated gene delivery, is poised to be an important contributor to this emerging field.