2024 Early Detection Grant - Jean Winter

Project Summary

The majority of pancreatic cancer patients are diagnosed when the patient starts experiencing symptoms, when the tumour has already spread to other parts of the body, and only 5% of people with this stage of cancer will live beyond 5 years. One of the most common forms of pancreatic cancer is called pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). The aim of this project is to develop a new blood test to detect early-stage PDAC. We will screen thousands of proteins in the blood from patients diagnosed with early-stage PDAC, using a highly sensitive technology that has never been used before in this cancer. We will compare these proteins to those found in the blood of patients without cancer. The goal is to identify the best proteins that will be able to identify a patient with an early-stage PDAC. We hope to develop these new proteins into a highly accurate blood test to screen for pancreatic cancer. This will enable these cancers to be found earlier, significantly improving pancreatic cancer survival rates.