Characterisation of primary human pancreatic tumour cells
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Characterisation of primary human pancreatic tumour cells by whole genome analysis, xenotransplantation into mice and 3D imaging
IRAS ID
199628
Contact name
Axel Behrens
Contact email
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 11 months, 31 days
Research summary
Pancreatic cancer is one of the hardest cancers to treat with drugs or radiotherapy, and research is needed to better understand the biology of these tumours before more effective treatments can be developed. To ensure that the research findings are relevant to patients, it is critical to analyse human tumour tissue. Over the course of three years, we propose to source pancreatic tissue from participants who are undergoing routine surgery at King’s College Hospital to have their pancreatic tumours removed. We intend to isolate individual cells from patient tumours and grow them into small three-dimensional tumours (called organoids) in the laboratory. These organoids resemble the original tumours from which they were grown, and allow us to better find out what biological changes make pancreatic tumours grow in the first place, and whether drugs can be used to stop them growing. Secondly, we wish to take small pieces of tumour tissue and chemically preserve them so that the proteins inside the cells are fixed, allowing them to be visualised using antibodies that glow when viewed under the microscope. We will use a new technique called CLARITY that lets us look at tumour tissue in three dimensions and in more detail than ever before. Thirdly, we would like to take cells from patient tumours and investigate how they grow into pancreatic tumours in mice. Such “patient derived xenograft“ mice will be used for testing new treatments in animals, an essential step before any new drug reaches the clinic. Laboratory research will be carried out at the Crick Institute, and data from patient records will be analysed by the clinicians involved at King’s College Hospital, anonymised, and correlated with research results to ensure that any relevant information is used to maximum benefit.
REC name
HSC REC B
REC reference
16/NI/0119
Date of REC Opinion
30 Jun 2016
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion