The project
Pancreatic cancer is hard to treat and one reason is that tumours become very acidic. This ‘sour’ environment arises because pancreatic cells deposit acid as they secrete digestive juices and because tumour growth produces acids. Only the toughest cancer cells can survive this chemistry, and in doing so, maintain acidity which weakens chemotherapy, immunotherapy and radiotherapy.
Professor Pawel Swietach from the University of Oxford aims to selectively eliminate the cells that keep tumours acidic, making therapies work better for pancreatic cancer patients and help to reach the goal of doubling survival.
What are they going to do?
Pawel’s research has identified the Achilles’ heel of cancer cells that survive acidic conditions. To exploit this, they have developed a new class of drug that kills these cells. They have also identified a molecular signature of the acid-adapted cells that can be used as a “postcode” for their drug.
To package the drug and deliver to the target cells, they will use tiny particles called cubosomes. This project will develop and test a new product designed to eliminate cancer cells living in acidic pockets. They will make the product available for testing as an adjuvant to other therapies.
Why is this research important?
By removing the cancer cells responsible for driving acidity, the team aim to make pancreatic tumours more accessible to a range of treatments. Immune cell therapies will work better without being blocked by acidity. Chemotherapies will retain effectiveness by not being modified by acid. Radiotherapy will improve by having more oxygen available, which is otherwise used up by acid-adapted cancer cells.
How to get involved
Pawel would like you to review their project summary, answer questions and give your thoughts and opinions on the project to ensure the documents can be understood and the motivation for the project is clear. This document review will be undertaken via email and your comments will be anonymised.
No scientific background or prior experience is needed to take part in this opportunity.
Next steps
If you would like to review the project summary or are interested in hearing more about the patient advisory group, please contact the Research Team (research@pancreaticcancer.org.uk) quoting the involvement reference ‘Pawel document review’. You will then be sent the documents to review along with some questions to answer and return to us by Sunday 14th September 2025.
