Sep 16 2015
Researchers at the University at Buffalo, Dublin City University and Queen’s University Belfast have secured over €3.3 million to develop an enhanced treatment programme for pancreatic cancer, the fourth leading cause of cancer deaths in the world.
Pancreatic cancer is a lethal disease to the vast majority of patients. This is partly because it tends to be advanced when discovered and blood flow to the tumour is usually so low that drugs cannot easily gain access. It is also difficult to anticipate which drugs will be most effective for a particular patient given the range of mutations that have been discovered in the cancer cells.
This project will look at how new formulations of drugs can affect the function of normal cells within the tumour matrix, rather than the tumour cells themselves. Targeting these cells could make the tumours more permeable and thereby increase the amounts of tumour-homing nanoparticle drug carriers that can gain access to the tumour cells. Ultimately the team will look at novel ways to personalise therapy for specific characteristics of a patient’s disease, moving away from the ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach.
This five-year research programme will bring together a team led by Prof Robert Straubinger of University at Buffalo, Drs Niall Barron and Robert O’Connor of Dublin City University and Prof Christopher Scott of Queen’s University Belfast, supported by a growing national and international pancreatic cancer research effort. In Ireland, this involved a translational partnership between colleagues in the National Surgical Centre for Pancreatic Cancer at St. Vincent’s University Hospital and the National Institute for Cellular Biotechnology.
Commenting on the announcement, Dr Robert O’Connor, said,
“This type of collaborative research will have very significant impact on our efforts to overcome cancer. Indeed, overall rates of survival from cancer are increasing by 1% per year. However, nearly 340,000 people die from pancreatic cancer globally each year, a figure that has remains stubbornly high despite advances in the treatment of other malignancies.
We are therefore delighted with the news of this award which brings together complementary expertise in cancer research from three different nationally-leading laboratories focussing on developing new strategies to specifically improve the treatment of pancreatic cancer.
The work also showcases the close ongoing relationship between doctors diagnosing and treating cancer and scientists developing new strategies to help patients. We hope that success in this work will encourage further investment in pancreatic cancer research and result in better outcomes for patients in Ireland, the US and globally.”
Prof Christopher J. Scott of Queen’s University Belfast added:
“This grant will allow us to explore new ways of improving the access of drugs to tumour sites. Using current chemotherapies, only a fraction of the drug gets to where it is needed. If this could be improved, even only incrementally, it could lead to a major advance in how we treat patients suffering pancreatic cancer.”
USA Investigator, Prof Bob Straubinger said,
“This international research effort was funded after receiving high marks in a very competitive review process by cancer experts at the US NIH. I think several factors entered into the decision. One is the panel recognised the very high quality of research going on at our institutions, and that over the past several years, our international team has developed some well-thought and novel ideas that integrate what each of us do best.
The most important factor was that the review panel concluded that the studies address a significant issue in pancreatic cancer and propose an important and novel idea that looks promising, with potential high impact on pancreatic cancer therapy.”
This research funding was received through the US-Ireland R&D Partnership Programme, a single-proposal, single-review mechanism, which supports tri-jurisdictional projects which are jointly funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the USA, Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) and HSC R&D in Northern Ireland.