Nanoparticles for optimized cancer therapy

Researchers from Göttingen and Karlsruhe have developed a new treatment approach for pancreatic cancer. The innovative method promises to be able to treat the disease in a more targeted way and with fewer side effects in the future. The therapy is now to be optimized for clinical application as quickly as possible.

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

Distinct classes of fibroblasts in tumors play opposing roles, promoting or restraining pancreatic cancer growth

Researchers discovered that two distinct classes of fibroblast cells accumulate in pancreatic tumors and play opposing roles to promote and restrain pancreatic cancer growth. Appropriately targeting these cells may offer options to improve treatment outcomes.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Could diet modification make chemotherapy drugs more effective for patients with pancreatic cancer?

The findings of a new study suggest that a ketogenic diet — which is low in carbohydrates and protein, but high in fat — helps to kill pancreatic cancer cells when combined with a triple-drug therapy. In laboratory experiments, the ketogenic diet decreased glucose (sugar) levels in the tumor, suggesting the diet helped starve the cancer. In addition, this diet elevated ketone bodies produced by the liver, which put additional stress on the cancer cells.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Novel treatment makes pancreatic cancer susceptible to immunotherapy, mouse study shows

A new study — in mice — suggests that blocking a major inflammatory pathway that is activated in pancreatic cancer makes the tumors sensitive to chemotherapy and a type of immunotherapy that prompts the immune system’s T cells to attack the cancer cells. The therapy more than doubled survival in a mouse model of pancreatic cancer.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Pancreatic cancer cells feed off hyaluronic acid

Hyaluronic acid, or HA, is a known presence in pancreatic tumors, but a new study shows that hyaluronic acid also acts as food to the cancer cells. These findings provide insight into how pancreatic cancer cells grow and indicate new possibilities to treat them.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Researchers identify signaling mechanisms in pancreatic cancer cells that could provide treatment targets

Scientists have provided new insights into molecular ‚crosstalk‘ in pancreas cancer cells, identifying vulnerabilities that could provide a target for therapeutic drugs already being studied in several cancers.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

The subtle difference: Pancreatic tumor organoids pave the way for single-cell diagnostics

The prognosis for pancreatic cancer is usually grim: The tumors are often detected too late and are then difficult to treat. Yet a small percentage of patients survive many years after diagnosis. Scientists from the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité (BIH) have now grown organoids from various pancreatic tumors in the laboratory, which they used to identify individual cell types and test the effects of various drugs. This enables patient-specific diagnostics and opens up the possibility of targeted therapy. The researchers have now published their findings in the journal Nature Communications.

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

Experimental drug boosts immunotherapy effectiveness in pancreatic cancer in mice

An experimental drug enhanced the benefit of an immunotherapy to fight pancreatic cancer in mice by increasing the number of immune cells in the immediate vicinity of the tumor, leading to a reduction in tumor growth, and in some mice, eliminating their cancer.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Scientists reverse pancreatic cancer progression in ‘time machine’ made of human cells

What makes pancreatic cancer so deadly is its covert and quick spread. Now, a ‚time machine‘ has shown a way to reverse the course of cancer before it spreads throughout the pancreas.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Lab grown tumor models could improve treatment for pancreatic cancer

An international team of scientists have created a three-dimensional (3D) pancreatic cancer tumour model in the laboratory, combining a bioengineered matrix and patient-derived cells that could be used to develop and test targeted treatments.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Link between inflammation and pancreatic cancer development uncovered

A new study finds that pancreatic cells display an adaptive response to repeated inflammation that initially protects against tissue damage but can promote tumor formation in the presence of mutant KRAS.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Engineers grow pancreatic ‚organoids‘ that mimic the real thing

Engineers developed a way to grow tiny replicas of the pancreas, using either healthy or cancerous pancreatic cells. Their models could help researchers develop and test potential drugs for pancreatic cancer.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Pumping iron: Inhibition of key pathway promotes iron-dependent cell death in pancreatic cancer cells

A cell culture study maps mechanisms underlying a new potential strategy for killing pancreatic cancer cells through a type of cell death known as ferroptosis.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

New drug combo shows early potential for treating pancreatic cancer

A team of researchers has developed an immunotherapy strategy that can eliminate pancreatic tumors in mice. The new therapy, a combination of three drugs that boost the body’s immune defenses against tumors, is expected to enter clinical trials later this year.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

How pancreatic cancer cells dodge drug treatments

Pancreatic cancer cells typically rely on a mutant version of the KRAS protein to proliferate. These cancer cells can also survive losing KRAS by activating alternative growth pathways. Scientists discovered a new interaction between mutant KRAS and a protein complex called RSK1/NF1 that may be the source of this adaptive resistance.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Scientists show how to attack the ‚fortress‘ surrounding pancreatic cancer tumors

Tackling the scar tissue that shields pancreatic tumors from effective drug access is a promising advance in a notoriously hard-to-treat cancer.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

PARP inhibitor shrinks tumors in pancreatic cancer patients with mutations

More than two-thirds of pancreatic cancer patients harboring genetic mutations saw their tumor stop growing or shrink substantially after being switched from intensive chemotherapy to the PARP inhibitor rucaparib as a maintenance therapy.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Immune-stimulating drug before surgery shows promise in early-stage pancreatic cancer

Giving early-stage pancreatic cancer patients a CD40 immune-stimulating drug helped jumpstart a T cell attack to the notoriously stubborn tumor microenvironment before surgery and other treatments, according to a new study.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Pancreatic cancer tumors use multiple mechanisms to avoid starvation: new target for treatment?

Researchers describe how pancreatic cancer cells use an alternative method to find necessary nutrients, defying current therapies, to help them grow and spread.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Scientists shrink pancreatic tumors by starving their cellular ’neighbors‘

Scientists have demonstrated that blocking ‚cell drinking,‘ or macropinocytosis, in the thick tissue surrounding a pancreatic tumor slowed tumor growth–providing more evidence that macropinocytosis is a driver of pancreatic cancer growth and is an important therapeutic target.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Therapy sneaks into hard layer of pancreatic cancer tumor and destroys it from within

Researchers demonstrated that a new tumor-penetrating therapy could enhance the effects of chemotherapy, reduce the spread of pancreatic cancer and increase survival in animal models.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Investment needed to bring down pancreatic cancer death rates in Europe

Researchers have called on European policymakers to make adequate resources available to tackle pancreatic cancer, a disease that is almost invariably fatal and where little progress has been made over the past 40 years. The latest predictions for cancer deaths in the EU and UK for 2021 show that pancreatic death rates are predicted to remain approximately stable for men, but continue to rise in women in most EU countries.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Drug is promising against pancreatic and breast cancers

The drug is effective at treating pancreatic cancer and prolonging survival in mice, according to a new study. A second study shows the drug is also effective against triple-negative breast cancer, a fast-growing and hard-to-treat type of breast cancer that carries a poor prognosis. Clinical trials are set to begin in 2021.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Compound derived from thunder god vine could help pancreatic cancer patients

The results of a pre-clinical study suggest how a compound derived from the thunder god vine — an herb used in China for centuries to treat joint pain, swelling and fever — is able to kill cancer cells and potentially improve clinical outcomes for patients with pancreatic cancer.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Disrupting the cellular process that promotes pancreatic cancer’s deadly growth

Researchers say they’ve identified a way to disrupt a process that promotes the growth of pancreatic cancers — one of the most difficult and deadly cancers to treat.

Quelle: Sciencedaily