Mausmodelle des Pankreaskarzinoms

Coordinator:		Prof. Dr. Roland M. Schmid
Institution:		Technische Universität München
Homepage:		www.tumuenchen.de/

Despite much progress in the identification of mechanims and relevant pathways during panceatic carcinogenesis, pancreatic cancer is still almost completely resistant to therapy. Many promising substances were not successful in large clinical trials, highlighting the need for better preclinical models with high predictivity regarding clinical benefit. Thus, validation in appropriate models and preclinical selection of the most beneficial substances are challenges to overcome the lack of highly effective agents against pancreatic cancer in a clinical setting. Genetically engineered mice (GEM), generated using sophisticated molecular techniques, can recapitulate many aspects of human pancreatic cancer including morphological and genetical alterations, invasion, metastasis and response to therapy. These GEM models will be generated and charakterized within TP2 and will be provided to the other TP of our network to analyze candidate genes identified in human pancreatic carcinogenesis and eligible antitumoral agents. Promising candidates will then be tested in a preclinical setting including use of multimodal imaging and analysis of serological markers.