NIH R01 · 2025
PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Five-year survival rate of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) still remains at a dismal 10%. This poor outcome is attributed to PDAC’s complex tumor microenvironment (TME) containing a desmoplastic stroma, which consists of cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) and a dense extracellular matrix (ECM). This stroma affects proliferation, invasion and drug resistance of pancreatic cancer cells (PCCs). Unexpectedly, the ablation of CAFs or targeting of certain ECM proteins in the stroma led to changes that actually accelerated tumor growth and impaired treatment outcome. To address this challenge, we are pursuing targets that selectively kill PCCs rather than CAFs.…
From the public funding record at NIH RePORTER. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.