Professor Eva Bezak

Project Summary

Professor Eva Bezak will use this grant funding to use radioisotopes emitting alpha particles to target and kill pancreatic cancer cells. Antibodies linked to radioisotopes emitting high energy particles are showing promise as a valuable treatment for a range of cancers.  This therapy, known as radioimmunotherapy, can target and kill cancer cells whilst sparing most normal cells. By minimising damage to normal cells, the likelihood of side effects from the therapy is reduced, increasing a patient’s quality of life during treatment. As current research into radioimmunotherapy in pancreatic cancer is limited, Professor Bezak and her team will aim to address this by developing a new radioimmunotherapy agent which uses a different radioactive isotope than previously used in pancreatic cancer. The new radioactive isotope also lives longer in the body, allowing the radioimmunotherapy agent more time to target and kill cancer cells. It is expected that the new agent will be more effective at killing the cancer cells than other previously used radioisotopes, but will, however, need to be tested and evaluated. The team will determine the safety and feasibility of a new radioimmunotherapy agent for the treatment of pancreatic cancer, and monitor its effectiveness. If the radioimmunotherapy agent is shown to be effective in killing cancer cells, Professor Bezak’s team will test the agent in preclinical models of pancreatic cancer.