Charting New Paths in Pancreatic Cancer Treatment: A Q&A with Lustgarten CAI Grant Recipients
Pancreatic cancer is not only the third leading cause of cancer death in the United States, but also a major public health problem in San Diego. Moores Members Andrew Lowy, MD and Shweta Joshi, PhD are leading groundbreaking research, recently funded by a Lustgarten Foundation Clinical Accelerator Initiative grant, to create new pancreatic cancer treatment therapies. One of these treatments already has been approved by the FDA, which means that its use for treating pancreatic cancer can be expedited. In this Q&A, Dr. Andrew Lowy describes the scope, importance, and reach of his research with Dr. Joshi.
WHAT SPECIFIC PROBLEM OR CHALLENGE DOES YOUR RESEARCH TARGET?
We target pancreatic cancer among patients with operable tumors because they are the patients who have the best chance of being cured—the cure rate remains only 15%–20%, which must be improved. The combination treatment of our study drug fostamatinib with chemotherapy is designed to enhance a given patient’s immune response against his or her cancer and improve the efficacy of the chemotherapy that follows.
WHY IS THIS RESEARCH MEANINGFUL AND IMPORTANT?
Improving the outcomes for and quality-of-life of pancreatic cancer patients is a major, unmet need. Our research stems from work done in laboratories at Moores and UC San Diego; moreover, verifying that what we are observing in preclinical models holds true for patients is extremely important.
HOW DID YOU BECOME INTERESTED IN THIS TYPE OF RESEARCH?
I have been interested in pancreatic cancer my entire career because so much is needed and needs to be done in this disease space. I want my work to be helpful for my patients, and I have seen far too many suffer from pancreatic cancer.
WHAT ARE THE EXPECTED RESULTS OR OUTCOMES OF YOUR RESEARCH?
Our expectation is that our combination therapy of fostamatinib and chemotherapy, followed by surgery, will be safe and improve survival for patients, compared to chemotherapy and surgery alone. In addition, both Dr. Joshi and I hope to observe that fostamatinib results in the activation of the immune system against pancreatic cancer cells, which we will be able to detect through analysis of both tumor and blood.
HOW DO YOU EXPECT THESE RESULTS TO CONTRIBUTE TO OUR COMMUNITY, THE RESEARCH FIELD, AND CLINICAL PRACTICE?
Regardless of the outcome of our research, we definitely will learn what fostamatinib and chemotherapy do to pancreatic cancer and the immune system. Nevertheless, we hope that the results are encouraging enough to justify conducting a larger study that could change the standard of care for pancreatic cancer patients. Because fostamatinib already is an FDA-approved drug, the path to making it available for pancreatic cancer will be much faster than usual.
Dr. Lowy and Dr. Joshi’s pioneering work at Moores holds promise for tackling the complex challenges of pancreatic cancer and improving the lives of patients who face it.