Investigating how scar tissue in pancreatic cancer tumours influences treatment response

The challenge

Pancreatic cancer tumours are unusual in that as well as cancer cells, they also contain high numbers of non-cancerous cells, including immune cells and structural cells. Together with cancer cells, these make up what is known as the tumour microenvironment. The tumour microenvironment is known to help support the tumour by helping it to hide from the immune system as well as playing a role in cancer growth and progression.

A key component of the pancreatic cancer microenvironment are large numbers of structural cells that form a dense layer, similar to scar tissue, around the tumour. This outer layer, called the stroma, forms a physical barrier that helps the tumour avoid the immune system and also protects the cancer cells from treatments such as chemotherapy which aim to destroy it.

It is thought that there may be significant differences in the tumour microenvironment of primary pancreatic cancer tumours (found in the pancreas) and metastases which occur when the cancer has spread to other organs such as the liver or lungs. The microenvironment surrounding these different types of tumour may act differently and support tumour growth in different ways. They may also behave differently in response to treatment.

To enable future treatments to be developed that can target both primary tumours as well as advanced pancreatic cancer that has spread around the body, it is important to identify and understand these differences.

The project

In this project, Professor Jorgensen and his team will study pancreatic cancer tumour tissue taken from both primary tumors and metastases in the same patient. They will use cutting-edge techniques to carry out highly detailed studies of the tumour tissue, the cells present and the processes taking place and compare them to identify differences and similarities between primary tumours and metastasis.

The hope

This project will shed new light on the role of the tumour microenvironment in primary and metastatic pancreatic cancer. In the long term, this project will help to support the development of better treatments by identifying new treatment options that are effective in both local and advanced pancreatic cancer.