Why is this research question important?
Pancreatic cancer is an aggressive disease, causing around 9,000 deaths annually in the UK and 440,000 worldwide. Better diagnostic and therapeutic tools are urgently needed. A major challenge is that cancer cells often spread rapidly to the liver—a process called metastasis.
While surgery can remove the primary tumour, 70–80% of patients still develop liver metastases despite treatment. To improve survival and quality of life, we must understand how pancreatic cancer spreads to the liver and develop tools to detect and stop metastasis earlier.
What are you going to do?
Professor Ainhoa Mielgo and a team of researchers at the University of Liverpool aim to establish a unique collection of matched primary pancreatic tumours, non/pre-metastatic liver tissue, and blood from consented patients to identify cellular and molecular changes that make the liver prone to metastasis.
Using advanced technologies already established in their lab, they will uncover critical insights into early events in metastatic spread. This research will help identify biomarkers for earlier detection and reveal potential therapeutic targets to improve treatment and prevent metastasis.
How could the outcomes of this project make a difference to people with pancreatic cancer?
This project aims to uncover how pancreatic cancer alters the liver, enabling it to spread—one of the main reasons this disease is so deadly. By identifying early changes, the team hope to find better ways to detect metastasis sooner and develop treatments to stop it.
Since 40–50% of patients have liver metastasis at diagnosis and 70–80% develop it later, this work could significantly improve survival and quality of life for pancreatic cancer patients. Promising treatments may be developed and tested in Liverpool with the teams clinical partners at the Liverpool-Cancer Research UK Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre.
No scientific background or prior experience is needed to take part in this opportunity.
Next steps
If you are interested in reviewing the project summary, please get in touch with the Research Team (research@pancreaticcancer.org.uk) quoting the involvement reference ‘Mielgo summary’. The team will then be able to share the summary with you to review along with 8-10 questions to answer. The deadline for this review is Thursday 17th July 2025.
