William Freed-Pastor, MD, PhD

Pancreatic cancer is a terrible disease, and we urgently need better treatments. The immune system can search the entire body to find and destroy cancer cells, just like it protects us from viruses or bacteria. The immune system does this by recognizing small “flags” on the surface of cancer cells. Unfortunately, cancer cells can often “hide” from the immune system so they don’t get destroyed.  We urgently need to find new ways to use the immune system to fight pancreatic cancer to develop better treatments for patients. We’ve been using something called “organoids” to study pancreatic cancer.  These are tiny, 3D versions of tumors grown in a dish from a patient’s own cancer cells. Using these organoids, we’ve been able to identify the “flags” on the surface of pancreatic cancer cells that the immune system might be able to recognize. We’ve also created a special system to help us figure out which of these “flags” are the best ones for the immune system to fight and ultimately destroy the tumor. Our plan is to use what we’ve learned to carefully test many new targets on the surface of pancreatic cancers to see if the immune system can recognize them. This will help us develop improved therapies for pancreatic cancer patients.