Pamela Itkin-Ansari, PhD
Reprogramming pancreatic cancer cells back to their original cell type
The lab recently found that a single gene reprograms pancreatic cancer cells back to their original cell type, halting tumor growth in animals. There is precedent for a reprogramming strategy in cancer treatment: it turned acute promyelocytic leukemia, once lethal, into a curable disease. To exploit this previously unrecognized plasticity in pancreatic cancer cells, the lab developed a drug screening platform, and from a screen of 4,300 known drugs identified several compounds that appear to regulate the pathway of interest. Sky funding supports evaluating those hits in mechanistic studies in cells and in an animal model.
The ultimate goal is a drug, or drug combination, that can be translated to the clinic as a novel reprogramming therapy for pancreatic cancer.
Dr. Pamela Itkin-Ansari is an Adjunct Professor at the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute and a member of its Cancer Metabolism and Microenvironment Program and NCI-Designated Cancer Center. She earned her PhD in Biomedical Sciences at the University of California, San Diego, in 1999 and completed postdoctoral training in diabetes there. She was appointed Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at UC San Diego in 2003 and moved her lab to Sanford Burnham Prebys in 2005. Her research is directed toward understanding diseases of the human pancreas; in pancreatic cancer, she studies how dysregulated transcription factors push normal pancreatic cells into abnormal cell division, which may reveal new drug targets.
Seed grants start at $50,000 — awarded by scientists, reported on annually.
Donate →Pamela Itkin-Ansari, PhD
Reprogramming pancreatic cancer cells back to their original cell type
The lab recently found that a single gene reprograms pancreatic cancer cells back to their original cell type, halting tumor growth in animals. There is precedent for a reprogramming strategy in cancer treatment: it turned acute promyelocytic leukemia, once lethal, into a curable disease. To exploit this previously unrecognized plasticity in pancreatic cancer cells, the lab developed a drug screening platform, and from a screen of 4,300 known drugs identified several compounds that appear to regulate the pathway of interest. Sky funding supports evaluating those hits in mechanistic studies in cells and in an animal model.
The ultimate goal is a drug, or drug combination, that can be translated to the clinic as a novel reprogramming therapy for pancreatic cancer.
Dr. Pamela Itkin-Ansari is an Adjunct Professor at the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute and a member of its Cancer Metabolism and Microenvironment Program and NCI-Designated Cancer Center. She earned her PhD in Biomedical Sciences at the University of California, San Diego, in 1999 and completed postdoctoral training in diabetes there. She was appointed Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at UC San Diego in 2003 and moved her lab to Sanford Burnham Prebys in 2005. Her research is directed toward understanding diseases of the human pancreas; in pancreatic cancer, she studies how dysregulated transcription factors push normal pancreatic cells into abnormal cell division, which may reveal new drug targets.
Seed grants start at $50,000 — awarded by scientists, reported on annually.
Donate →