Peter Storz, Ph.D.

Closed for Enrollment

• Pilot Study: Validation of potential biomarkers for pancreas cancer in human saliva. (BIOPanc) Jacksonville, Fla.

  The goal of this study is to determine if the biomarkers found to be upregulated in tissue samples are specific to PDAC and can be detected in saliva. Saliva will be collected form PDAC and control subjects for comparison. Additionally, to determine if the biomarkers are specific to PDAC or other KRAS driven cancers, saliva will be collected from patients with breast and lung cancer. The saliva collected from these subjects will be studied for the presence of specific protein biomarkers and used in experiments such as western blots and ELISAs.

  Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is one of the most aggressive cancers with an extremely low overall 5-year survival rate. In previous experiments, human formalin fixed paraffin embedded (FFPE) PDAC tissue samples were obtained for laser microdissection of precancerous pancreatic lesions. RNA was isolated from the tissue and sequenced. The RNA-seq data suggested that there were many potential biomarkers for PDAC that could positively impact the clinical setting and early-detection of the disease if validated in patient samples.