Predicting how well pancreatic cancer patients will respond to chemotherapy
Predicting how well pancreatic cancer patients will respond to chemotherapy
Dr Omid FaridaniUNSW Sydney$427,7002020 – 2022
Background
Pancreatic cancer is the fifth most common cause of cancer-related death in Australia and has an extremely low five-year survival rate. Even with the best care, patients with advanced tumours will, in most cases, die within 12 months of their diagnosis. Patients with advanced pancreatic cancer are often treated with chemotherapy to help relieve symptoms and improve survival.
The research
In patients with pancreatic cancer, the amount and type of chemotherapy they receive are based on their overall fitness without knowing if the drug will even be effective. With this project, Dr Faridani will develop an innovative method to predict how well a patient with pancreatic cancer will respond to chemotherapy to make sure they receive effective treatment.
The team will study pancreatic cancer cells found in the blood of patients – called circulating tumour cells (CTCs) – to measure different molecular types (such as RNAs, proteins and DNA mutations) of each individual cell. By analysing single cells, the team will be able to study a few pancreatic cancer cells among all other cells in blood and detect important information that could be missed if only looking at all cells in blood together.
The impact
This innovative research could be a breakthrough in treating pancreatic cancer and improving survival outcomes. Understanding the genetic make-up of individual cells will allow for an in-depth analysis of how well patients will respond to treatment, reducing unnecessary suffering from ineffective drug treatments and hopefully leading to a longer survival for patients.
If successful, the Dr Faridani’s long-term aim is to design a clinical trial whereby a patient’s blood is analysed just a few days before they start chemotherapy. The results would be sent to the oncologist who will use the information to decide on the best regimen for the patient. The hope is then to use this approach in other solid cancers for personalised chemotherapy.
Project update
Dr Faridani’s team has taken steps towards developing non-invasive personalised medicine for pancreatic cancer. They have created a new single cell analysis method called Nanocell that helps scientists study individual cancer cells (CTCs) in more detail than ever before. Using cutting-edge sequencing platform called Oxford Nanopore Technology, they can read the full genetic messages inside each cell and spot important changes like mutations .
To make sense of this complex data, the team built a special computer program called Medlib and developed a new way to grow rare CTCs so they’re easier to study. This breakthrough could help to detect pancreatic cancer earlier, monitor how it changes over time, and choose treatments that are tailored to each patient. All of these innovations are being patented by the University of NSW.
