Demir Lab

Research focus

ERC Consolidator Grant · 2025

Deciphering and Targeting the Synapses between Cancer Cells and Neurons in Pancreatic Cancer

The nervous system has recently been identified to play a central role in cancer pathogenesis, and this discovery has given birth to the burgeoning field of “cancer neuroscience”. Neurons and cancer cells outside the brain are known to communicate over paracrine signals, However, we recently discovered direct synaptic connections between sensory nerve endings and cancer cell membrane in a cancer outside the brain, i.e., pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). These synaptic sites exhibit a selective enrichment of the glutamatergic NMDA receptor subunit GluN2D on the cancer cells, which enables PDAC cells to hijack the neurotransmitter L-glutamate over these cancer-neuron-synapses. This…

From the public funding record at EU CORDIS. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.