2025 New Treatment Innovation - Dr. Sarah Hancock

Pancreatic cancer is one of the toughest cancers to treat. It’s often diagnosed late, and current treatments like chemotherapy don’t work well for most patients. Our research aims to improve how these treatments work by targeting the cancer’s hidden survival
strategies.

We’ve found that pancreatic cancer cells depend heavily on how they process fats (a process called lipid metabolism) to grow and resist treatment. These cells use special enzymes called desaturases to change fats in a way that helps them survive. One key enzyme, known as SCD1, has been studied before as a drug target in cancer, but blocking SCD1 hasn’t been very successful. We now think that’s because the cancer has a backup plan: another enzyme called FADS2 that can take over when SCD1 is blocked.

In this project, we’re investigating how common this backup enzyme (FADS2) is in pancreatic cancer. We’ll study patient samples using advanced tools that can detect tiny changes in fat molecules. This will help us figure out how many patients might benefit from a new treatment approach. We’re also testing whether combining standard chemotherapy (gemcitabine and paclitaxel) with drugs that block SCD1 makes the chemotherapy work better. Our early research suggests that this chemotherapy combination naturally lowers FADS2 activity, which might make cancer cells more vulnerable to SCD1 blockers. By targeting both enzymes at once, we hope to shut down a key survival pathway for the cancer.

To test this idea, we’ll use lab-grown mini-tumours (called organoids) and models that closely mimic human pancreatic cancer. We’ll try different SCD1 blockers with standard chemotherapy to see which ones work best. If successful, this research could lead to more effective treatments for pancreatic cancer that help patients respond better to therapy by attacking the cancer’s metabolic weak spots.