Project description
Pancreatic organoids may help speed development of effective treatment for pancreatic cancer
Although pancreatic cancer is the 11th most common cancer worldwide, it is the seventh leading cause of cancer-related deaths globally. Despite advances in diagnosis and management of pancreatic cancer, the five-year survival rate still remains less than 10 %. The PRECODE training network is taking advantage of a newly developed technique, self-assembly of functional organ-mimicking tissues in a dish, to speed drug development for this lethal disease. Young researchers are honing their skills in culturing and manipulating pancreatic organoids to better understand disease progression. Ultimately, using pancreatic organoids developed from the patient's cells could lead to personalised medicine that is targeted, specific and highly effective against pancreatic cancer.
Objective
The PRECODE Network (PancREatic Cancer OrganoiDs rEsearch) central mission is to establish pancreatic organoid research firmly in the European Union, by training the next generation of creative and innovative researchers in pancreatic cancer. This will be done through a shared doctorate program of excellence that fulfils the three “I”: international, interdisciplinary and intersectorial. Organoids can be viewed as small micro-organs which can recapitulate the organization and the function thereof. As micro-organs organoids can be used to reduce animal experiments and help to reach 3R goals. Organoids from pancreatic cancer will help us to learn which drugs might help in the therapy of this terrible disease. They can be isolated from a variety of clinical sources with minimal material needed. This makes them a perfect tool for precision medicine. Sequencing, metabolomics and high throughput in vitro experiments to deduct the best possible drug combination fit hand in glove with this approach. Training of ESRs will be achieved by e-learning, workshops and secondments. They will earn to cultivate and manipulate organoids as well as cutting edge molecular biology techniques. Therefore our work group consists of 15 beneficiaries and 7 partner organization (including three patient advocate groups from Sweden, Italy and Germany) to develop those technologies and to train ESRs in their application. PRECODE will therefore connect the concepts of investigation, education and innovation establishing a capacitation for the ESRs that goes beyond the state of the art and that will allow them to improve their competences and their professional career at the same time that we advance towards innovation in the field of pancreatic cancer research.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
Coordinator
91054 Erlangen
Germany