NIH R01 · 2025
Pancreatic cancer-associated fibroblasts: function, detection, and regulation
PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Pancreatic cancer induces a fibrous microenvironment, desmoplasia, which spans most of the tumor mass and contains cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs). CAFs sustain a cancer homeostatic equilibrium by producing extracellular matrices (ECMs) and secreting inflammatory factors. The ECM produced by CAFs prompts normal fibroblasts to undergo activation and transition into CAFs, thereby propagating desmoplastic expansion in a positive feedback loop. While the normal microenvironment suppresses tumor onset, desmoplasia can either support or avert pancreatic cancer. A better understanding of desmoplastic expansion and the ECM factors that control it could enable us to…
From the public funding record at NIH RePORTER. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.