Zeroing In on Earliest Stages of Pancreatic Cancer Development
Source: Sebastian Kaulitzki/Science Photo Library/Getty Images
February 5, 2021
Share
Scientists in Scott Lowe’s lab at the Sloan Kettering Institute report that they are trying to zero in on the earliest stages of pancreatic cancer development.
“If we understood how these tumors form, maybe we could catch them before the cancer has progressed to an incurable stage,” says Direna Alonso Curbelo, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the Lowe lab who is the first author of a new paper “A gene–environment-induced epigenetic program initiates tumorigenesis” published in
Nature.
Using advanced genomic techniques and innovative mouse models, the researchers were able to discern how tissue damage synergizes with specific genetic changes to promote the earliest stages of pancreatic cancer.