Dr Pilar Acedo
Senior Research Fellow at the UCL Institute for Liver and Digestive Health, UCL Division of Medicine, Royal Free Hospital.
Pilar (@pilar_acedo) has a PhD in Genetics and Cell Biology from the Autonomous University of Madrid (Spain), with training also at Harvard Medical School (USA) and Padova University (Italy). She made notable contributions to the fields of light-based therapies and nanomedicine for the treatment of cancer. After a postdoc at the Karolinska Institute (Sweden), Pilar joined University College London (UCL) in 2015, where she currently works as a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Liver and Digestive Health (Royal Free Hospital). She leads the basic science research programme of the Pereira/Acedo Lab (@PereiraAcedoLab), formed of basic and clinical scientists, whilst also being involved in several translational studies in early cancer detection.
The group’s research focuses on the discovery and validation of cancer-associated, fibro- and immuno-inflammatory biomarkers for the early detection and risk stratification of pancreatic cancer and cholangiocarcinoma. The lab’s research interests also include the evaluation of combination therapies in patient-derived models (e.g. organoids) to improve the outcome of patients with these cancers.
Addressing a key challenge of pancreatic cancer: early detection
Pancreatic cancer is associated with a particularly poor prognosis. Currently, pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) has a median survival from time of diagnosis of 3 to 6 months and an overall 5-year survival rate of less than 7%. A main reason for such poor outcomes is lack of early detection, partly because of non-specific symptoms in early stages of the disease. Efficient strategies for the screening and surveillance of patients at risk of pancreaticobiliary cancer have not been established. Given the dismal prognosis of advanced stage disease, the development of highly sensitive and specific laboratory tests is pivotal to identify patients at risk and to improve early detection of this lethal disease.
In my talk, I will give a short overview of biomarkers for early detection of pancreatic cancer, as well as current challenges, limitations and opportunities in this expanding field of research. I will also discuss recent insights we have gained as part of the Early Diagnosis Research Alliance, and present key results derived from our ongoing collaborative projects which aim to identify symptoms earlier and to develop sensitive and specific tools for the early detection of pancreaticobiliary diseases. Future perspectives to improve the diagnosis of patients with pancreatic cancer will also be addressed.