2016 Activity Summary

UCLA AGI HIRSHBERG CENTER FOR PANCREATIC DISEASES DAVID GEFFEN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT UCLA

ACTIVITY SUMMARY 2016

UCLA AGI HIRSHBERG CENTER FOR PANCREATIC DISEASES DAVID GEFFEN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT UCLA ACTIVITY SUMMARY 2016

As the founder of the Hirshberg Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research, Agi Hirshberg has worked tirelessly for the past 20 years to advance pancreatic cancer research, education, and patient care worldwide. UCLA’s relationship with the Hirshberg Foundation has enabled many scientific breakthroughs and new achievements in patient care. In 2016, the L.A. Cancer Challenge, the Hirshberg Foundation’s annual race that raises money for pancreatic disease research, was held on UCLA’s campus for the first time, a fitting demonstration of the partnership between the two organizations.

The UCLA Agi Hirshberg Center for Pancreatic Diseases was named in February 2015, and since then the Hirshberg Foundation has continued to advance UCLA’s multidisciplinary approach to evaluating and treating patients with pancreatic diseases. An example of this is the center’s integrated practice unit (IPU), where surgeons, medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, pathologists, gastroenterologists, geneticists, psychosocial care specialists, and others hold a weekly formalized conference to discuss all the cases of their pancreatic disease patients. Each week, there are 20-30 conference participants.

O. Joe Hines, M.D., Chief of the Division of General Surgery and Robert and Kelly Day Chair in General Surgery in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, notes that the IPU is the only place of its kind on the West Coast for pancreatic disease patients. The close proximity of care providers has many benefits to patients, many of whom travel from far away to receive care at the Hirshberg Center. Patients often come to the center with only one appointment scheduled, but if the provider feels that the patient would benefit from seeing an additional IPU member, the staff works to find a same-day appointment so the patient can avoid a return trip.

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UCLA AGI HIRSHBERG CENTER FOR PANCREATIC DISEASES DAVID GEFFEN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT UCLA ACTIVITY SUMMARY 2016

Care providers in the IPU see an average of 20-25 patients weekly, up from 10-15 prior to the IPU’s formation, indicating how robust the program has become. The shared space has provided a platform for faculty to begin to collaborate more scientifically. There are new clinical trials underway, investigating the utility of a new type of radiation therapy, as well as industrysupported drug trials.

The IPU additionally gives residents and fellows a very deep and concentrated experience in pancreatic diseases, allowing trainees to understand the value of a multispecialty approach to disease management and a shared decision-making process. Healthcare has started to move toward greater care integration, which leads to better outcomes, but very few models like the IPU exist in the United States. Trainees who spend time in the IPU will understand what dynamics and practices need to be in place to make fully integrated care feasible at the institutions they later join.

Dr. Hines says that patient reaction to the IPU has been overwhelmingly positive. Patients who come to the IPU after receiving treatment elsewhere have often had frustrating experiences, and they are pleased and relieved to discover the personalized care the center offers, including a nurse practitioner and a coordinator who spend a considerable amount of time with patients, shepherding them through the whole process.

The IPU is merely one example of how the Hirshberg Foundation has advanced pancreatic cancer treatment at UCLA. Additional innovations in patient care, leading-edge research, and training the next generation of pancreatic disease experts are outlined on the following pages.

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UCLA AGI HIRSHBERG CENTER FOR PANCREATIC DISEASES DAVID GEFFEN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT UCLA ACTIVITY SUMMARY 2016

RONALD S. HIRSHBERG TRANSLATIONAL PANCREATIC CANCER RESEARCH LABORATORY Under the direction of Guido Eibl, M.D., Professor in the Department of Surgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, the Ronald S. Hirshberg Translational Pancreatic Cancer Research Laboratory continues to investigate the link between obesity, inflammation, and pancreatic cancer. This has been the focal point of Dr. Eibl’s research for the past five years and involves collaborations with several other laboratories at UCLA, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, and the VA West Los Angeles Medical Center.

Using a mouse model genetically engineered to develop pancreatic cancer over a period of up to 12 months, Dr. Eibl’s team has shown that obese mice receiving a high-fat diet develop more pancreatic tumors early on, as compared to nonobese mice receiving a normal diet. Some of the team’s research demonstrating that obesity accelerates pancreatic cancer development in the mice has been published, and the team is now in the process of publishing the study in its entirety, while conducting additional related investigations that are supported by the Hirshberg Fund.

The team continues to conduct numerous cell culture studies to try to understand and confirm the mechanisms involved in the relationship between obesity and pancreatic cancer development. Research has focused on specific inflammatory molecules and genetic alterations that occur with a high-fat diet in the context of obesity. Dr. Eibl has confirmed that obesity causes many genetic alterations in the pancreas, which may be one of the mechanisms that accelerates tumor development. Because obesity causes inflammation in the fat tissue and in the pancreas, the team believes it plays an important role in hastening tumor development.

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UCLA AGI HIRSHBERG CENTER FOR PANCREATIC DISEASES DAVID GEFFEN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT UCLA ACTIVITY SUMMARY 2016

During the past year, Dr. Eibl’s team also conducted studies looking at possible nutritional and drug-based interventions for obesity-associated pancreatic cancer. They are studying the effect of fish oil and statins like Lipitor and Zocor, which are currently used to treat high cholesterol and decrease cardiovascular health risks. There is evidence that statins may also be useful in preventing pancreatic cancers, and the team is investigating scientific models to determine if they will be beneficial with the comorbidity of obesity.

The Hirshberg Fund also supports a lab technician who provides crucial assistance to postdoctoral fellows and other researchers in the Hirshberg lab. Additionally, Dr. Eibl used support last year to facilitate travel to conferences where the team shared data and results and established relationships with other researchers. In October 2016, Dr. Eibl travelled to Boston for the annual American Pancreatic Association meeting, where he presented a “poster of distinction” on the relationship between adipose tissue inflammation in the abdomen and its relationship to driving tumor development in the pancreas.

Last year Dr. Eibl had five research articles appear in leading publications, including Surgery, Pancreas, and the American Journal of Physiology—Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology. His team also prepared a renewal grant application to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which they submitted in October. The renewal grant requested $6,500,000 over five years and includes three major projects in the labs of Dr. Eibl; J. Enrique Rozengurt, D.V.M., Ph.D., A.G.A.F., F.R.C.P., Ronald S. Hirshberg Chair in Translational Pancreatic Cancer Research; and Stephen J. Pandol, M.D., Director, Basic and Translational Pancreas Research in the Department of Medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Dr. Eibl notes that given the current political climate, the future of NIH funding may be especially tenuous, which is one of many reasons why private philanthropy from the Hirshberg Foundation is essential to his investigations. Additionally, the smaller and more recent investigations in Dr. Eibl’s lab currently are not funded by the NIH and will require more data in order to be competitive.

Support from the Hirshberg Foundation enables Dr. Eibl to hire the researchers and support staff to generate this data. He obtained his first NIH funding in 2004, as a result of the work produced from a Hirshberg Foundation Seed Grant. Since then, the Hirshberg Foundation has allowed his research to continue without interruption. He is profoundly grateful for this funding.

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UCLA AGI HIRSHBERG CENTER FOR PANCREATIC DISEASES DAVID GEFFEN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT UCLA ACTIVITY SUMMARY 2016

UCLA PANCREAS TISSUE BANK Under the direction of David Dawson M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Department of Pathology Administration and the Division of Surgical Pathology in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, the UCLA Pancreas Tissue Bank (PTB) provides a vital resource to pancreatic disease researchers at UCLA and the wider scientific community.

Dr. Dawson continues to oversee the accrual of tissues for the PTB, which averages between 70-100 new patient specimens per year. The PTB uses tissue collection procedures that ensure the availability of these limited and high-quality resources to as many researchers as possible.

Dr. Dawson also directs a pancreatic cancer-focused research laboratory in the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center and is actively involved in training and mentoring the next generation of scientists through his work with graduate students, residents, and fellows.

Support from the Hirshberg Foundation allows Dr. Dawson not only to provide valuable tissue resources, but also to share his pathology and research expertise with investigators at UCLA and other institutions. He is an important collaborator on various projects that show promise for future breakthroughs in understanding and treating pancreatic cancer.

One project, a collaboration with James Tomlinson, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor-inResidence, Division of Surgical Oncology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, focuses on neuroendocrine tumors, which have markedly different survival outcomes from pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PDAC), which has very low five-year survival rates. While the majority of patients with neuroendocrine tumors never have a recurrence after the tumor is removed, around 20 percent have recurrences and die of metastatic disease. Currently, it is hard to predict which cases will progress.

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UCLA AGI HIRSHBERG CENTER FOR PANCREATIC DISEASES DAVID GEFFEN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT UCLA ACTIVITY SUMMARY 2016

The PTB has provided 85 pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor samples for sequencing, and Drs. Dawson and Tomlinson are in the process of analyzing the data in relation to survival outcomes and other factors. They evaluate the data on a patient-by-patient basis and look for unique mutations that have not been previously identified. They also look at the data in totality in order to identify subsets of patients that carry certain mutations. They will further stratify this data into categories based on how aggressively the tumors behave, histological features portending aggressiveness, and whether or not the tumors metastasize.

The ultimate goal of this project is to develop a personalized or precision medicine approach to the diagnosis and treatment of neuroendocrine tumors. This has the potential to allow physicians to identify risk factors and determine how certain subsets of tumors and mutations will respond most effectively to different therapies.

Dr. Dawson often performs analysis on human tissue as a correlative to various model studies. He is currently working with Paul Grippo, Ph.D., from the University of Illinois College of Medicine, examining how the protein PRDX1 is involved in regulating the progression of pancreatic cancer.

He continues to collaborate with Matthias Hebrok, Ph.D., from the University of California, San Francisco, researching factors in pancreatic cancer development that are abnormally regulated during cancer progression. For over a decade, Dr. Dawson has closely collaborated with Timothy Donahue, M.D, Chief of Gastrointestinal and Pancreatic Surgery, and Associate Professor of Surgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, on numerous basic and translational research projects exploring the relationship between PDAC and its surrounding tissue microenvironment, which is now recognized as an important component of the cancer’s typifying aggressive clinical behavior and chemoresistance. These and other collaborations have led to important research discoveries published in various high impact journals, including Genes & Development, Nature Cell Biology, and Cancer Research.

Other notable collaborations have included Dr. Dawson’s ongoing work with the Canary Foundation’s pancreatic cancer team, a group of prominent pancreatic disease specialists who are interested in developing novel imaging and biofluid-based tests for the accurate and costeffective early detection of PDAC. Such tests would increase the number of patients who would have the opportunity to undergo potentially curative surgery. This group includes several leaders in the field, including, among others, Teri Brentnall, M.D., University of Washington; Kimberly Kelly, Ph.D., University of Virginia; and Juergen Willmann, M.D., Stanford University. The UCLA PTB

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UCLA AGI HIRSHBERG CENTER FOR PANCREATIC DISEASES DAVID GEFFEN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT UCLA ACTIVITY SUMMARY 2016

has been a key resource in validating the potential utility of tumor-specific markers now under evaluation as imaging-based targeting agents for detecting early-stage PDAC. Dr. Dawson notes that the Hirshberg Foundation’s consistent support over the years has not only been very important to the PTB, but also to pioneering work done at UCLA and elsewhere that will translate into improved outcomes for patients with pancreatic diseases.

PSYCHOSOCIAL CARE VIA THE SIMMS/MANN–UCLA CENTER FOR INTEGRATIVE ONCOLOGY Under the direction of Anne Coscarelli, Ph.D., Adjunct Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hematology/ Oncology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and Clinical Professor in the UCLA Department of Psychology, the Simms/Mann–UCLA Center for Integrative Oncology, provides a breadth of psychosocial services at no charge to cancer patients and their families. Support from the Hirshberg Foundation allows the center to care for those affected by a pancreatic cancer diagnosis and its treatment.

This is a population with extensive needs. Patients usually have a short window for treatment and must make decisions quickly, which adds greatly to stress levels. At the same time, patients and families are confronting grim statistics about survival rates, so they also are recognizing that they may be facing the end of life or a shortened life span. Coping with these issues requires a range of physical, psychological, and social services; Dr. Coscarelli works closely with the Simms/ Mann Center’s Associate Director, Kauser Ahmed, Ph.D., a psychologist with more than 15 years of experience in the field, and the rest of her team, to ensure that these needs are met.

The team sees pancreatic cancer patients both in the Simms/Mann Center and the UCLA Agi Hirshberg Center for Pancreatic Disease clinic. Simms/Mann Center clinical staff members, including Elizabeth Cleary, Ph.D., a licensed clinical psychologist, participate in the case conferences attended by all care providers. They use the information to better guide patients through the clinical process and helps them frame questions for their care providers, get information, and cope with expectations.

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UCLA AGI HIRSHBERG CENTER FOR PANCREATIC DISEASES DAVID GEFFEN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT UCLA ACTIVITY SUMMARY 2016

Dr. Cleary also involves the Simms/Mann Center’s predoctoral psychology interns in her work with the UCLA Agi Hirshberg Center, which has provided great training opportunities. The interns learn how to successfully support patients with complex and advanced cases, and many of them have gone on to careers serving oncology patients.

Additionally, the Simms/Mann Center has one to two dedicated staff members per day serving the cancer care clinic at UCLA Medical Center, Santa Monica, where they see pancreatic cancer patients alongside the physicians and provide care for distressed patients.

In addition to playing a crucial role in pancreatic cancer patients’ clinical care, Simms/Mann Center staff members comprehensively address patients’ psychological and spiritual needs.

The Center’s psychiatrist is available to see patients quickly and can prescribe psychotropic medications, which are often needed when confronting a stressful diagnosis and treatment. Many patients are not covered for psychological treatments or have a high deductible and the center helps patients navigate insurance and coverage issues.

A side effect of chemotherapy and other treatments can be weight loss. Studies have shown that people who lose muscle mass during treatment have more side effects from chemotherapy, so addressing a patient’s nutritional needs is important. To this end, the center offers an integrative wellness assessment, run by an integrative oncology specialist with 30 years of experience. The assessment provides patients with a personalized wellness plan, which includes information on appropriate nutritional and dietary supplements to maintain weight.

The center also provides assistance with other complications, including sleep problems, fatigue, and pain and mood management for both patients and their family members, recognizing that a patient’s loved ones need to be as healthy as possible to provide care and maintain the family system.

Consulting with patients on advanced care options and helping them think about end-of-life care is another crucial service provided by the Simms/Mann Center. Staff members work with patients on legacy planning and serve as clinical consultants regarding the End of Life Option Act. The law allows terminally ill California residents who meet certain criteria to seek aid-in-dying medication.

Many pancreatic cancer patients fall into this group. Center staff help answer patients’ questions, and, if a patient decides to move forward with obtaining the aid-in-dying drug, help the physician and patients follow the rigorous rules set out by the law.

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UCLA AGI HIRSHBERG CENTER FOR PANCREATIC DISEASES DAVID GEFFEN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT UCLA ACTIVITY SUMMARY 2016

The center helps patients with young family members communicate with them about the disease and gives tips for maintaining normalcy. One of the hardest challenges for patients with young families is figuring out what to say and how to prepare children when the end of life is near. Center staff are available for family consultations and encourage children to ask questions and discuss their fears. These age-appropriate conversations are tailored for children from as young as four to older teens who are coping with more complex issues, such as deciding whether they should attend college close to home or out of state. The center also provides the equally important service of facilitating conversations with the person who will be the surviving parent.

Other services provided by the center include lecture series, support groups, and spiritual guidance from a staff chaplain. The center’s care providers work collaboratively to ensure that patients have a seamless experience. Dr. Coscarelli deeply appreciates the center’s relationship with the Hirshberg Foundation, which enables the center to offer this wealth of services to families affected by pancreatic disease.

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UCLA AGI HIRSHBERG CENTER FOR PANCREATIC DISEASES DAVID GEFFEN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT UCLA ACTIVITY SUMMARY 2016

RONALD S. HIRSHBERG CHAIR IN TRANSLATIONAL PANCREATIC CANCER RESEARCH Dr. Enrique Rozengurt, Distinguished Professor of Medicine; Ronald S. Hirshberg Chair in Translational Pancreatic Cancer Research; Chief of Research, UCLA Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases; and Director of CURE: Digestive Diseases Research Center, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, is a pioneer in the area of signal transduction and cell growth regulation.

Dr. Rozengurt and his team work to identify innovative targets and strategies for the prevention and treatment of pancreatic cancer. They are continuing their work with metformin, the most widely prescribed drug for the treatment of type 2 diabetes (T2DM). They have discovered that metformin inhibits pancreatic cancer growth in preclinical scientific models, and the proliferation of human pancreatic cancer cells in culture—a finding that opened a new field in pancreatic cancer research. Dr. Rozengurt’s initial studies appeared in the prestigious journal Cancer Research. This was the first publication on the mechanism of metformin in human pancreatic cancer. Since metformin is an FDA-approved drug extensively used in the treatment of T2DM and other conditions, including prediabetic states, its rapid translational research for use in pancreatic cancer treatment is a tangible possibility.

Dr. Rozengurt’s ongoing studies into the mechanism of the action of metformin in pancreatic cancer has led to the idea that metformin should be considered not only for the treatment of T2DM, but also for the prevention of pancreatic cancer developing in potentially susceptible patients, notably those who have been treated surgically to remove pancreatic tumors.

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UCLA AGI HIRSHBERG CENTER FOR PANCREATIC DISEASES DAVID GEFFEN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT UCLA ACTIVITY SUMMARY 2016

Over the past year, Dr. Rozengurt has also begun to focus on the pro-oncogenic protein YAP, which is attracting intense interest as a key regulator of organ-size tissue regeneration and tumorigenesis. He hypothesized that YAP could play a critical role in promoting pancreatic cancer and mediating crosstalk signaling. The team’s work in this area has led to discoveries that have the potential for rapid translation into new therapies for pancreatic and other obesity-sensitive cancers.

In addition, under Dr. Rozengurt’s leadership, the CURE: Digestive Diseases Research Center has consistently promoted studies on pancreatic inflammation and cancer and was awarded a grant renewal for five years.

Dr. Rozengurt and his team are highly productive in their scientific output and their papers are published in such prestigious medical journals as American Journal of Physiology—Cell Physiology, Current Molecular Medicine, and Biochemical Biophysical Research Communications.

They have presented their work at multiple international meetings, including the Annual Digestive Disease Week, the largest and most prestigious international meeting on digestive diseases worldwide, where several abstracts were selected as oral presentations and will be published in a supplement to Gastroenterology. Abstracts also were submitted to the American Pancreatic Association (published in Pancreas) and the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (published in a supplement to Cancer Research).

Dr. Rozengurt is grateful for the funding from the Ronald S. Hirshberg Chair in Translational Pancreatic Cancer Research, which provides vital support for this work.

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UCLA AGI HIRSHBERG CENTER FOR PANCREATIC DISEASES DAVID GEFFEN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT UCLA ACTIVITY SUMMARY 2016

HIRSHBERG FOUNDATION SEED GRANT PROGRAM The Hirshberg Foundation’s Seed Grant Program provides crucial funding for early-stage investigations into pancreatic diseases. With support from the Hirshberg Foundation, Vay Liang W. Go, M.D., Distinguished Professor, Department of Medicine, UCLA Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases, and Director, UCLA Center for Excellence in Pancreatic Diseases, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, works with the Hirshberg Scientific Advisory Committee to manage and coordinate the scientific seed grant program and other interactions with national and international programs supported by the foundation. Dr. Go’s office also coordinates research activities for programs with NIH support in pancreatic investigations at UCLA. The Hirshberg Fund provides partial support for the salary and benefits for Dr. Go’s assistant, who coordinates many aspects of the seed grant program.

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UCLA AGI HIRSHBERG CENTER FOR PANCREATIC DISEASES DAVID GEFFEN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT UCLA ACTIVITY SUMMARY 2016

UCLA SEED GRANT RECIPIENTS The 2015-2016 Hirshberg Foundation Seed Grant Program received 79 applications and awarded 11 grants to the most promising investigations, which included five researchers from UCLA. Below are brief updates on their projects.

Ken Herrmann, M.D., M.B.A. Clinical Translation of the Somatostatin Receptor 2 Theranostic Concept at UCLA Dr. Herrmann, Associate Professor, UCLA Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology, is working to develop a program at UCLA that is dedicated to theranostics, which is a form of diagnostic testing used for developing specific, individualized treatment plans. The program will have a special focus on pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors. Whereas theranostics programs are well-established in Europe, access for U.S. patients has been limited. Receiving the Hirshberg Foundation Seed Grant Award has accelerated Dr. Herrmann’s efforts to bring this treatment option to Southern California.

Stergios Katsiougiannis, Ph.D. Immunosuppressive Effects of Salivary Exosomes in Pancreatic Cancer The Hirshberg Foundation Seed Grant Award was of paramount importance to the investigation of Dr. Katsiougiannis, Assistant Project Scientist, the UCLA School of Dentistry, on the involvement of salivary glands and saliva in pancreatic cancer. The support allowed his team to generate and publish impactful data in the November 2016 edition of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology Journal. This fueled significant progress for ongoing research on salivary biomarkers and laid the foundation for future grant applications toward sustainable funding.

Zhao Li, Ph.D. Early Pancreatic Cancer Imaging by CA19-9 Magnetic Nanoparticles and Active-Feedback Magnetic Resonance Receiving the Hirshberg Foundation Seed Grant Award has allowed Dr. Li, postdoctoral research associate and lecturer in the UCLA Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, to move forward with this project. Her research aims to enhance detection specificity through effective targeting of pancreatic cancer biomarkers and augment detection sensitivity through contrast-enhanced

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UCLA AGI HIRSHBERG CENTER FOR PANCREATIC DISEASES DAVID GEFFEN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT UCLA ACTIVITY SUMMARY 2016

imaging of magnetic nanoparticles. So far, statistical results from her team’s pancreatic cancer models at various cancer stages have validated the superior sensitivity and robustness of this approach toward early pancreatic cancer detection.

Huan Meng, Ph.D. Targeted Delivery of Irinotecan by the Combined Use of a Transcytosisinducing iRGD Peptide and Mesoporous silica Nanoparticle for Pancreatic Cancer Treatment Although pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) has a poor survival outcome, some improved overall survival has been achieved with the introduction of nanocarriers that deliver chemotherapeutic drugs, such as irinotecan, to a tumor.

Hirshberg Foundation Seed Grant Award support helped the team show that a nanocarrier made of nanoparticles that structurally resemble hollow glass bubbles can be used to improve efficacy and safe delivery of drugs in a scientific PDAC model. Furthermore, the team demonstrated that the co-administration of a tumor-targeting peptide enhanced the uptake of the irinotecandelivering nanocarrier, leading to an additional survival benefit and significant decrease in metastasis. These results have been published in ACS Nano, and an additional paper will soon be published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. Dr. Meng and his colleagues will complete preclinical studies shortly and plan to move forward with translating the work to a clinical study.

Alice Soragni, Ph.D. Targeting p53 Aggregation to Treat PDAC Dr. Soragni’s team focuses on testing the efficacy of treating pancreatic cancer with the therapeutic agent ReACp53, which targets p53, a gene that is thought to play a role in regulating cell cycle and cell death and in suppressing tumors. Because of the Hirshberg Foundation Seed Grant Award, the team was able to establish clinically relevant 3D pancreatic tumor organoid models that faithfully recapitulate the cancer of origin. The team determined which cases carried an altered p53 protein and treated these mini pancreatic tumors with ReACp53. Their studies indicate that pancreatic tumor cells carrying p53 alterations are responsive to ReACp53, warranting further investigations of this novel therapy in the context of pancreatic cancer.

We look forward to providing updates on the work of Mark Girgis, M.D.; Jonathan C. King, M.D.; Zhaoping Li, M.D.; Claudio Scafoglio, M.D., Ph.D.; and Annette L. Stanton, Ph.D., who were among the 2016-2017 Hirshberg Foundation Seed Grant Program recipients.

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UCLA AGI HIRSHBERG CENTER FOR PANCREATIC DISEASES DAVID GEFFEN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT UCLA ACTIVITY SUMMARY 2016

THE HIRSHBERG FOUNDATION AND UCLA: PARTNERS IN ADVANCEMENT Nationally, pancreatic cancer incidence rates continue to rise. In the late 1990s, approximately 20,000 people per year were diagnosed in the U.S. Now, the number is between 45,000 to 47,000 a year. While obesity is thought to play a role, researchers are still working to determine the reasons for this dramatic increase. According to the journal Cancer Research, it is estimated that pancreatic cancer will be the second most common cause of cancer deaths in the U.S. by 2020.

At the same time, pancreatic disease clinicians are beginning to see instances of improved outcomes in individual patients, including remarkable responses to treatment and longevity after treatment, in both surgical and nonsurgical cases. Faculty at the Hirshberg Center, along with high-level scientists around the globe focused on pancreatic cancer, are hopeful that major progress in early diagnosis will lead to better treatment and outcomes.

The Hirshberg Foundation’s 20-year relationship with UCLA is the reason for the large campus portfolio of investigators working to find a cure for pancreatic cancer. With the Hirshberg Foundation’s ongoing partnership and support, UCLA looks forward to continuing to bring clinicians and scientists together to pursue a cohesive vision of excellence in pioneering pancreatic disease research and education, resulting in improved treatments and outcomes for patients with pancreatic cancer.

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