Investigation into the role of immune cells in pancreatic cancer
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Investigation into the role of immune cells in pancreatic cancer
IRAS ID
317707
Contact name
Michael Schmid
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Liverpool
Duration of Study in the UK
5 years, months, days
Research summary
Pancreatic cancer remains one of the most lethal type of malignancies with 10-year survival rate of less than 5% in the UK. In addition to late diagnosis, poor response to the currently available therapies is a major contributing factor in pancreatic cancer’s dismal prognosis. Traditionally, therapies for pancreatic cancer, such as chemotherapies, are designed to kill the cancerous cells. However, through progress made in the field of cancer research in the past decade, it is now known that the non-cancerous cells that are also present in the bulk tumour tissue, such as immune cells and fibroblasts, can play an important role in supporting cancer progression. These non-cancerous cells have therefore become attractive targets for cancer therapies and understanding how these non-cancerous cells behave around the cancer cells and affect their growth and survival is important to be able to develop an effective therapeutic strategy. Our research group and others have shown previously that a type of immune cells called macrophages can regulate pancreatic cancer growth and survival. However, the underlying mechanisms for this are still not fully understood. Our study therefore aims to investigate how immune cells regulate growth and survival of cancer cells and whether interactions between different types of immune cells play an important role in this.
REC name
London - Bromley Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
23/PR/0397
Date of REC Opinion
7 Jun 2023
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion