Research Spotlight: Convening Our Community for Progress to Make Meaningful Change

Editor's note: The "Research Spotlight" series is written by Dr. Anna Berkenblit, PanCAN's Chief Scientific and Medical Officer. Each month, Dr. Berkenblit shares her insights into the latest news and research in pancreatic cancer. Follow Dr. Berkenblit on X and LinkedIn.

A new location. Record numbers of attendees, poster presentations and talks. A buzz of energy - of hope and optimism - that I've never seen before at a pancreatic cancer conference. This year's PanCAN Scientific Summit was an event to remember.

Hosted in sunny San Diego, the Summit brought together PanCAN's Community for Progress, including research grant recipients, Scientific and Medical Advisory Board members, Industry Champions, patient research advocates, members of our Board of Directors and other special guests. Everyone in the room was there with a shared purpose - to turn science into survival.

The opening reception showcased 27 posters, representing clinical progress from Industry Champions and scientific updates from grantees and users of our SPARK health data platform. We were also delighted to invite nine travel scholars to attend the conference - graduate students and postdoctoral fellows who displayed posters of their research projects and received feedback from experts in the field. One of the happiest outcomes was the strong comradery amongst the travel scholars - trainees who are working hard to establish their own careers as pancreatic cancer researchers and now have a network of new mentors and peers to lean on for support.

A Dialogue about RAS, Ten Years in the Making

As we were preparing the agenda for this year's Scientific Summit, we knew we had to spotlight RAS - a protein mutated in more than 90% of pancreatic tumors that was considered undruggable for decades - until now. In August of this year, the first RAS-targeting drug for patients with pancreatic cancer was approved after showing a doubling of overall survival compared to chemotherapy in a recent clinical trial.

Today, there are more than 80 different RAS-targeting drugs in clinical development for treating cancer.

As we look forward to navigating this new era of treatment options for pancreatic cancer, we also took the opportunity to look back on what it took to get here. Three of the world's leading experts on RAS biology - Drs. Dafna Bar-Sagi, Channing Der and Frank McCormick - sat down to discuss whether RAS would ever be a druggable target at a PanCAN Scientific Meeting back in 2016. Ten years later, we were able to reassemble the three of them alongside Dr. Brian Wolpin, the principal investigator for the RASolute-302 clinical trial that led to the approval of RASONQUE™ (daraxonrasib), for a robust discussion about the past, present and future of studying and targeting RAS.

The excitement was palpable as the discussion turned to how various stakeholders - scientists, clinicians, industry, patient advocates, regulatory agencies and more - are working together to incorporate RAS inhibition into the treatment of pancreatic cancer and aiming to make it even more effective.

Scientific Highlights Beyond RAS

We also hosted a panel discussion among three powerhouse patient advocates - representing a combined total of more than 55 years of pancreatic cancer survivorship and lived experience! Through their involvement with PanCAN and the pancreatic cancer research community, all have played a critical role in shaping priorities, ensuring patient-centricity and pushing forward research projects with the most potential to improve patient outcomes.

Another highlight for me was hearing "flash talks" by the recipients of our 2026 PanCAN Research Recovery Grants. Based on feedback from last year's Scientific Summit, this grant mechanism was deployed to bridge the gap so scientific momentum can continue in the midst of federal funding uncertainties.

Each Research Recovery Grant recipient told a similar story of receiving a meritorious score for a grant submitted to a federal funding agency and not having the funding come through. The potential repercussions of these disruptions ranged from needing to pivot away from an entire scientific direction and not being able to retain key lab personnel. Fortunately, the PanCAN grants are allowing progress to continue and lab teams to stay intact.

During the day, we also heard about the latest in earlier detection efforts, including a keynote talk by Dr. Ajit Goenka about the use of AI in detecting abnormalities in abdominal CT scans that are not visible to a radiologist. This technology could allow CT scans that are done in people at high risk for pancreatic cancer or in the general population for myriad reasons - from car accidents to appendicitis - to be analyzed for the presence of early signs of pancreatic cancer, allowing earlier intervention. We also got the latest updates about the PanCAN Early Detection Initiative, which is evaluating how new-onset diabetes can serve as an early symptom of pancreatic cancer, by Dr. Suresh Chari. Dr. Chari referred to the changes in blood sugar and weight that can precede a pancreatic cancer diagnosis as "the tumor talking." The goal is to amplify the signal being sent by the cancer cells to be detectable at the earliest possible stages of disease progression.

The meeting was rounded out by talks providing updates on ongoing PanCAN-funded clinical trials for patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer and an introduction to several of our valued partnerships. We heard from Canopy Cancer Collective, with whom we partnered to develop the first U.S. consensus statements on the diagnosis of exocrine pancreatic insufficiency and treatment with pancreatic enzyme replacement therapy, published as a white paper and submitted for publication in a biomedical journal. We also heard about ongoing projects alongside both Canopy and the Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation with Partner Therapeutics to increase awareness and access to biomarker testing - which will be more important than ever now that new targeted therapies are becoming available to patients with pancreatic cancer.

I enjoyed talks by investigators whose projects are utilizing the PanCAN SPARK health data platform. We were excited to hear from Dr. Josh Wheeler from Genialis, who's been a longtime PanCAN partner and user of Know Your Tumor® data through SPARK. At Scientific Summit, Dr. Wheeler announced a new partnership with Inventia Life Sciences that will leverage both companies' expertise to create clinically relevant 3D models of pancreatic tumors and their microenvironment to help predict treatment efficacy based on subtypes of tumors.

Even More Science: The AACR Conference on Pancreatic Cancer

After the full and fulfilling day of science at our Scientific Summit, we transitioned to the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Conference on Pancreatic Cancer down the road. The theme this year was, "New Frontiers in Biology and Therapeutic Development," and the meeting included more than 300 scientific abstracts and over 600 attendees from around the world.

The four organizers of this year's conference, Drs. Andy Aguirre, Florencia McAllister, Ken Olive, Diane Simeone and Colin Weekes, are all recipients of PanCAN grants and/or members of our Scientific and Medical Advisory Board. In fact, in her closing remarks, Dr. McAllister mentioned how she and Dr. Olive first met and started collaborating following a PanCAN Scientific Meeting in the past.

Unsurprisingly, this meeting also featured a strong focus on targeting RAS as a treatment for pancreatic cancer, with talks outlining novel combination strategies with other targeted therapies, chemotherapy, immunotherapy and other treatment types, as well as expanding our understanding of the biology of how tumors are or become resistant to RAS-targeting agents.

A common term heard throughout the AACR pancreatic cancer conference was the "ecosystem" of the tumor, which includes not just the cancer cells and their surrounding microenvironment, but also the patient's immune system, nervous system, vasculature and other aspects of the patient's biology. The ecosystem is also considered dynamic - cell states and cell-cell interactions can change throughout the course of the disease and in response to treatments. Defining and understanding these interactions and changes can be critical to earlier detection and interception, treatment and quality of life for people affected by pancreatic cancer.

I'll close with a quote from one of the participants in our panel about patient advocacy. Stu Rickerson is a 21-year survivor of pancreatic cancer and an emeritus member of PanCAN's Board of Directors. When he retired from our Board, PanCAN President and CEO Julie Fleshman reminded him of a quote of his from years prior:

"The beginning of the end for pancreatic cancer is coming into view; we just have to adjust our telescopes to see it."

Attending the PanCAN Scientific Summit and AACR Conference on Pancreatic Cancer renewed my confidence that we are indeed making meaningful progress in the fight against pancreatic cancer. Join us - because all together, we can turn science into survival.