Wilmot Team Receives $3M to Further Study Pancreatic Cancer, New Treatment Scheme

Cancer of the pancreas is the most lethal of all major cancers. Why? Factors both inside pancreatic cancer cells and in the neighborhood around the cells create an environment that allows cancer to spread easily and resist treatment.

Wilmot Cancer Institute investigators Darren Carpizo, MD, PhD, and Scott Gerber, PhD, are studying these intrinsic and extrinsic factors—and recently won a $3 million award from the National Cancer Institute to develop a new generation of treatments that can overcome these complex barriers. Both Wilmot members have been investigating pancreatic cancer for years and have already published several important steps to advance research and patient care.

Darren Carpizo, MD, PhD, and Scott Gerber, PhD

Their one-two punch pairs an immunotherapy with localized stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) to target the tumor’s surrounding environment (extrinsic factors), and an experimental drug, NP137, to target the cancer cells’ internal drivers (intrinsic factors).

They believe their approach can kill cancer cells while also reprogramming the surrounding environment to become less hospitable to cancer returning.

The Gerber-Carpizo team plans to launch a phase 1 clinical trial for patients as soon as regulatory approvals are complete.

Earlier research by David Linehan, MD, a surgeon-scientist and CEO of the University of Rochester Medical Center, laid the foundation for this latest project. Linehan has been working with Gerber and Carpizo for several years to understand how pancreatic tumors leverage non-cancer cells in the surrounding environment to grow, and how to combine standard treatments with novel immune therapies and radiation to control the disease.

Carpizo is a professor of Surgery and of Biomedical Genetics, and serves as co-leader of Wilmot’s Genetics, Epigenetics, and Metabolism (GEM) research program. Gerber is a tumor immunologist and associate professor of Surgery, Microbiology and Immunology, and Radiation Oncology. He is also co-leader of Wilmot’s Cancer Microenvironment (CM) research program.