Kathleen DelGiorno, assistant professor of cell and developmental biology, has received a Research Scholar Award from the American Cancer Society. The award will fund research into potential therapies against pancreatic cancer, the third-leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States, which is forecast to become the second-leading cause by 2030.
“I feel deeply honored to receive this award from the American Cancer Society, which will allow us to follow up on our promising work on how eicosanoids, lipid signaling molecules, can be modulated to target pancreatic cancer,” DelGiorno said.
Symptoms of pancreatic cancer, such as abdominal pain and indigestion, tend to be non-specific. As such, pancreatic cancer is typically diagnosed at an advanced stage, after metastasis, resulting in a 13 percent five-year survival rate.
Given the circumstances surrounding pancreatic cancer, DelGiorno has laid out a plan to potentially target weaknesses and pathways driving pancreatic cancer.
Prior work by DelGiorno identified two specific fatty acids from the eicosanoid family that play a role in pancreatic tumorigenesis. Building upon that work and using the ACS funds, DelGiorno is seeking to uncover key pathways driven by eicosanoid receptor signaling in pancreatic cancer, use genetically engineered animal models to uncover the role of eicosanoid receptors in pancreatic tumorigenesis, and use new therapeutics and pancreatic cancer models to determine the benefits of manipulating those pathways in vivo.
Certain drugs, such as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, target the proteins that synthesize the fatty acids in question and have shown efficacy in cancer prevention but have severe adverse effects that limit their use as cancer-preventing agents. Instead of targeting those synthases, DelGiorno’s strategy is to target the downstream fatty acid receptors themselves, which will limit adverse effects while increasing efficacy.
“An innovative aspect of our proposal is that we can repurpose therapeutics being developed for other diseases for the treatment of pancreatic cancer,” she said. “We will use cancer models to determine if novel drugs targeting these two fatty acids will treat pancreatic cancer.”
DelGiorno will receive $215,000 per year for four years to perform these experiments.
The ACS is the leading cancer-fighting organization with a vision of “ending cancer as we know it, for everyone.” They are the only organization working to improve the lives of people with cancer and their families through advocacy, research, and patient support. They work to ensure everyone has an opportunity to prevent, detect, treat, and survive cancer.