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Howard Crawford, PhD | Chief Scientific Officer | Henry Ford Health, Detroit, MI

Henry Ford Health System

Scientific Director of the Henry Ford Pancreatic Center in Detroit.  The Crawford Laboratory studies how tumor cells and immune cells communicate with one another to promote pancreatic cancer progression.

 

RESEARCH FUNDED BY SKY FOUNDATION, INC.

PROJECT TITLE: IMMUNE RESPONSES IN PATIENTS WITH CHRONIC PANCREATITIS AND PANCREATIC CANCER

PRINCIPLE INVESTIGATOR:

Howard Crawford, Ph.D., Professor, Molecular & Integrative Physiology, and Internal Medicine. Director, Pancreas Research Program, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

PROJECT SUMMARY:

Focusing on the initiation of pancreatic cancer, including how some risk factors, such as chronic pancreatitis, promote tumor formation

With this knowledge and support from Sky Foundation, Dr. Crawford’s laboratory is studying the immune responses in patients with chronic pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer, in the hopes of identifying an immune cell signature capable of distinguishing these patients from one another with a simple blood draw

Blood and pancreatic cancer biology samples are being collected from patients and analyzing them using two techniques

Technique 1: CyTOF, allows researchers to look at 30 different cell surface markers simultaneously, characterizing the complete immune cell signature in the circulation

Technique 2: Single Cell Sequencing, reveals what each of the different cell types in the tumor and in the circulation are expressing, allowing investigators to determine how immune and tumor cells are communicating with each other

Both techniques have produced two very exciting outcomes

First, pancreatic cancer patients have a unique immune cell signature compared to normal and pancreatitis patients

Blood sample testing from at risk patients is being conducted longitudinally to determine if there are emerging signatures in asymptomatic patients that suggest cancer has formed

Second, single cell sequencing has suggested brand new immune suppressing crosstalk pathways to target, with the goal of reawakening the immune system to attack the tumor