Molecular Profiling of Pancreatic Cancer

通过NCI-马里兰大学资源合同以及与德国戈廷根大学研究人员的合作，我们从三个不同的患者队列中获得了冷冻的胰腺导管腺癌及其周围的非肿瘤样本。在初步分析中，我们通过微阵列基因表达谱确定了一组基因，这些基因在肿瘤中过度表达，也与两个独立队列中较差的存活率有关。我们目前正在使用基于定量-实时聚合酶链式反应的Fluidigm平台对基因签名进行技术验证。然后，将在第三个独立队列中研究经过验证和进一步改进的预后基因标记，以确认它们作为胰腺癌新的预后标记的有效性。我们还在继续努力敲定一项协议和问卷，以启动一项关于大巴尔的摩地区胰腺癌的病例对照研究，我本人是这项研究的首席研究员。

Through the NCI-University of Maryland Resource Contract and collaboration with researchers at the Universitatsmedizine Goettingen, Germany, we have obtained frozen pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma and surrounding nontumor samples from three different patient cohorts. In a preliminary analysis, we have identified a set of genes through microarray gene expression profiling that are overexpressed in tumors and are also associated with poorer survival in two independent cohorts. We are currently performing a technical validation of the gene signature by using quantitative-real time PCR based Fluidigm platform. The validated and further refined prognostic gene signature will be then investigated in the third independent cohort to confirm their utility as novel prognostic marker for pancreatic cancer. We are also continuing our efforts of finalizing a protocol and questionnaire to initiate a case-control study of pancreatic cancer in the greater Baltimore area with myself as the Principal Investigator of this study.