UCLA researchers receive $6 million from NIH to explore new pancreatic cancer therapies

A team of researchers from theUCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center has been awarded two research grants totaling $6 million from the National Institutes of Health to identify new ways to treat pancreatic cancer.Pancreatic cancer is the third leading cause of cancer-related mortality in the United States, accounting for more than 47,000 deaths annually. Only 1 in 10 people diagnosed with this particularly aggressive disease live beyond five years, and most therapies — including conventional chemotherapies, targeted therapies and immunotherapies — are unsuccessful in treating it.“Pancreatic cancer is one of the most challenging cancers to treat,” said Dr. Caius Radu, a professor of molecular and medical pharmacology at theDavid Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “The lack of effective treatments suggests there is an inadequate understanding of the biologic complexity of the disease and the mechanisms behind its resistance to therapies that work in treating other types of cancers.”Thetwo grant-supported projects, which will be co-led by Radu and Dr. Timothy Donahue, a professor of surgery and chief of surgical oncology at the Geffen School of Medicine, aim to untangle those complexities and to identify potential new immunotherapeutic approaches.KRAS: Genetic mutations and pancreatic cancerThe firstgrant projectwill focus on mutations to the KRAS gene, which are implicated in nearly all pancreatic cancer cases.Mutated KRAS genes drive tumor growth in the pancreas ...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news