John McAuliffe
Albert Einstein College of Medicine, NY·Medicine & Clinical Research
Many people with pancreatic cancer have surgery and chemotherapy that seem to work, yet the cancer often returns. One explanation is that a few cancer cells escape the main tumor, spread to organs such as the liver, and sit there quietly in a sleep-like state called dormancy.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Biology
Pharmacology
- Topics
pancreatic cancer
pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma
tumor dormancy
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Mar 2028
What they work on
- Determine whether pancreatic cancer cells circulating in the blood or spread to organs like the liver express NR2F1, a gene-switching receptor linked to dormancy, in mice and in human patients.
- Test whether disseminated pancreatic cancer cells in mice and humans activate PERK, a stress-response enzyme that helps cells survive, as a marker of dormant spread disease.
- Test whether combining a drug that activates NR2F1 with a drug that blocks PERK extends survival in mice with locoregional pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma by inducing dormancy and killing dormant tumor cells.
More about the research
These leftover cells, known as minimal residual disease, can resist treatment and later wake up and grow. The idea that pancreatic cancer goes dormant at all is still debated, because the disease is so aggressive. Little is known about how dormancy works in this cancer.
Why it matters
Pancreatic cancer often returns even after surgery and chemotherapy that appear successful, and patients have few good options. If dormant tumor cells can be identified by NR2F1 and PERK activity and eliminated with a drug combination, this could point to new treatment approaches that lower relapse and improve survival for people with locally advanced pancreatic cancer.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Wantong Yao
University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, TX·Medicine & Clinical Research
Define the molecular pathways through which a newly identified stress-response regulator helps pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) cells survive nutrient shortage, low oxygen and oxidative stress, and evade the immune system.
Shiaowen Hsu
Duke University, NC·Medicine & Clinical Research
Test whether minimal residual disease cells from colorectal cancer patients that resist standard-of-care chemotherapy are more likely to metastasize and cause recurrence, using MicroOrganoSpheres grown from portal venous blood collected during surgery.
Brittany Allen-Petersen
Purdue University, IN·Biochemistry
Identify how PP2A-B56α, a subunit of a phosphate-removing enzyme, controls the fusion of macropinosomes with lysosomes, focusing on chemical changes made to proteins after they are built.
The school
Albert Einstein College of Medicine: 21 labs on PI Pages, $361M a year on research, 36 research doctorates a year.
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