Stefanie Bailey, PhD

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most difficult cancers to treat, with only about 1 in 10 patients living five years after diagnosis. New and more effective treatments are urgently needed. One promising option is CAR-T cell therapy, which uses a patient’s own immune cells to fight cancer. While this treatment works well in blood cancers, it has not been successful in solid tumors like pancreatic cancer. One major challenge is the environment around the tumor, which lacks nutrients and weakens the immune system. This makes it hard for immune cells to survive and do their job. Our research aims to solve this problem by using a single target to improve both the immune cells and the tumor environment. We have found that changing how immune cells use energy can help them stay stronger and last longer in the body. At the same time, targeting how cancer cells grow makes the tumor more vulnerable to attack. By combining these two strategies, we hope to improve how well CAR-T cells work against pancreatic cancer. With support from the V Foundation, we will test this approach in models of pancreatic cancer. If successful, this work could lead to better treatment options for people with pancreatic cancer and potentially other hard-to-treat cancers as well.