In conversation with Dr Kate Herbert

Hi Kate, congratulations on your Collaboration Catalyst Award! Please could you tell us about the focus of your research?

Our research aims to discover insights into how pancreatic cancer becomes resistant to treatment. For example, how these treatment resistance mechanism develop and what  vulnerabilities exist that we could potentially target with new therapies.

To carry out this research, it is important that we have access to good models of pancreatic cancer. Cellular models commonly used in translational research are not able to accurately represent the complexity of interactions between tumours and their microenvironment. These interactions are important because they have a profound influence on treatment response, the development of treatment resistance over time, and ultimately, survival of patients. Hence there is an urgent need to establish and use improved models of pancreatic cancer for laboratory research.

What inspired you to apply for a Collaboration Catalyst Award?

Centres that are investing highly in pancreatic cancer research tend to be in different instituations and spread around the country, often separated by some distance. In order to make significant headway in research in this field, it is vital that we work together and build collaborations. This includes sharing knowledge and equipment, but also sharing technical advice to help us answer disease-specific questions in a timely and efficient manner.

This new Collaboration Catalyst Award scheme provides an opportunity to generate, develop and strengthen interdisciplinary, interinstitutional, and international relationships between scientists who share a common end goal – to reduce the impact of pancreatic cancer for both individuals and the broader community.

How are you planning to use the funds from your award?

We will use this funding to establish a collaboration between biomedical researchers at York St John, surgical researchers at Leeds Teaching Hospitals, and world-leading cancer researchers from the US who have specific expertise in creating and growing cell models called organoids.

Specifically, I will use the funding to travel to Leeds where I will work with the surgical team there to take tissue from pancreatic cancer patients immediatly after surgery into the lab where it will be used to generate organoids. Organoids are complex 3D models grown in the laboratory that more accurately represent a tumour than traditional cell models grown in the lab. The organoids we generate will be preserved as a living biobank that will display a broad range of pancreatic cancer characteristics, and will be a vital resource for research aimed at improving both the treatment and detection of pancreatic cancer.

By collaborating with the local clinical team, we will have access to ongoing clinical information from each donor that corresponds to the organoids that we generate in the laboratory. This will provide an extra layer of contextual data which will enable us to correlate our research findings with information about patient treatment strategy and disease response. Our pancreatic cancer biobank will also enable us to recruit a team of talented researchers dedicated to uncovering exploitable vulnerabilities within the entire tumour microenvironment, to understand how tumours adapt to overcome first line treatment, and translate these findings into the clinic.

I’m grateful to Pancreatic Cancer UK for enabling me to gather together a multidisciplinary team of investigators who are able to support and drive each other’s future investigations by sharing ideas and experience. I am also excited by the prospect of developing and deepening the working relationship between myself and the diverse members of our group in the future.

What impact could this research have for people with pancreatic cancer in the long term?

This Collaboration Catalyst Award will enable us to build a pancreatic cancer organoid biobank that will help to support future investigations into new and more effective treatments for pancreatic cancer. It will also provide an opportunity for me to develop my research ideas on a broader scale by supporting a talented group of scientists from different institutions in pursuit of a common purpose – to improve survival outcomes for pancreatic cancer patients.

The incidence of pancreatic cancer diagnosis and treatment in the North Yorkshire region is relatively high in comparison with the rest of the UK, and survival rates are also lower compared to the rest of England. Despite this, Yorkshire and the Humber is underrepresented when it comes to Pancreatic Cancer research. A regional approach, and the integration of clinical experience with preclinical investigations, benefits patient care. Our ultimate intention is to drive awareness of the need for ongoing research to the forefront of biomedical institutions in the North of England.