For more information, contact: Tom O’Connor, UNMC Public Affairs Phone: (402) 559-4690 April 2, 1998

UNMC Eppley Cancer Center Awarded $4.4 Million Grant to Battle Pancreatic Cancer

The University of Nebraska Medical Center and Johns Hopkins University are the only two institutions in the nation to receive a Special Programs of Research Excellence (SPORE) grant from the National Cancer Institute to investigate gastrointestinal cancer.

Through the $4.4 million SPORE grant, basic and clinical researchers from the UNMC Eppley Cancer Center will collaborate with peers from Creighton University and the Creighton Cancer Center to explore new strategies for the prevention, early detection and treatment of pancreatic cancer.

The UNMC Eppley Cancer Center grant is the only SPORE award to emphasize research into pancreatic cancer -- one of the most difficult cancers to survive. For all stages of the disease combined, the one-year survival rate is just 20 percent. The five-year survival rate is 4 percent.

The cancer is hard to detect because symptoms generally do not occur until the disease is advanced. Little is known about its causes, and consequently, how to prevent it. Finally, pancreatic cancer is aggressive.

Margaret Tempero, M.D., interim director of the UNMC Eppley Cancer Center, lauded the

potential of the grant. The grant gives researchers freedom in designing their projects and in use of their money. The grant also encourages collaboration with other institutions and initiation of more projects not originally outlined in their grant application.

"The SPORE grant offers great opportunities and flexibility," said Dr. Tempero, who also is the chief investigator of the grant. "The grant allows us to do things we couldn’t do with other National Institutes of Health funding. Specifically, it allows us to change directions in our research

and provides career development funds to attract other investigators."

Ultimately, the grant is designed to generate further research ideas.

-over-

"The SPORE grant doesn’t fit the model of typical research," said Andrew Chiardo, chief of the Organ Systems Coordinating Branch in the Cancer Therapy, Diagnosis and Centers Division of the NCI. "Typical research is hypothesis-testing. SPORE grant research is hypothesis-generating."

Among the projects funded under the SPORE grant is the investigation of a new strategy for treating pancreatic cancer. The therapy is focused on developing antibodies that are attracted to antigens produced by cancerous tumors, thereby allowing the antibodies to attack the tumors.

"We’re using biology and traditional therapy," Dr. Tempero said. "By attaching a radioactive particle to an antibody, the antibody serves as a homing device searching for the tumor-associated antigen and treating the tumor with radiation."

"Patients with pancreatic cancer have elevated levels of a hormone called amylin, which is released from the pancreatic islet cells that make insulin," said Tom Adrian, Ph.D., professor of biomedical sciences at Creighton University. "We will work to identify the cancer cell factor responsible for increased amylin production and investigate whether this factor or amylin itself are valuable as early diagnostic indicators of this devastating cancer."

Other projects funded by the grant include developing and testing tumor vaccines, examining the formation of pancreatic tumors and studying the role of smoking in the development of pancreatic tumors.

In addition, researchers will gather molecular genetic data on families that show a proclivity toward developing pancreatic cancer, according to Henry T. Lynch, M.D., director of Creighton’s Cancer Center and professor and chair of preventive medicine and public health at Creighton. The group also will create a national familial pancreatic cancer registry and will conduct studies on the molecular genetics of the disease.

UNMC is the only public academic health science center in the state. Through its commitment to research, education and patient care, UNMC has established itself as one of the country's leading centers for cancer research and treatment and solid organ transplantation. More than $25 million in research grants and contracts are awarded to UNMC scientists annually. In addition, UNMC's educational programs are responsible for training more health professionals practicing in Nebraska than any other institution.