Race against time
No challenge is too big for Tony Hollingsworth, Ph.D.
This Ironman has completed 2.4-mile swims, 112-mile bike rides and 26.2-mile runs. Now, he’s poised to solve one of medicine’s biggest challenges: early detection of pancreatic cancer.
One in 79 people will develop pancreatic cancer. Once diagnosed, a person has less than a 5 percent chance of living more than five years.
Dr. Hollingsworth wants to change those odds – and he hopes others will join him in this race against time.
Dr. Hollingsworth and his team study the basic biology of pancreatic cancer in an effort to discover new biomarkers, which indicate the presence of a disease, and may help diagnose the killer in its earliest stages. They also use information from basic science studies to develop new therapies that extend a patient’s life.
"Patients should have hope, and take comfort in the fact that there are researchers who care and are working hard to come up with better ways to detect and tame this disease," Dr. Hollingsworth said.
His colleague, Surinder Batra, Ph.D., says a simple blood test – one that detects a protein produced by pancreatic cancer – would help alert patients to the disease.
An internationally patented biomarker – first identified by UNMC researchers in 2001 – shows promise in the early detection of the disease. Mucin 4, a human gene also known as MUC4, is associated with the disease progression and can be found in blood and tissue.
A high level of the biomarker may mean that cancer is in the body.
As members of the UNMC Eppley Cancer Center’s pancreatic program, the resolve of Drs. Hollingsworth and Batra to find answers is strengthened by nearly $15.5 million in external funds, nearly all of which comes from the National Cancer Institute. Of that, $5.3 million is part of a competitive five-year Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) grant to fund translational research in pancreatic cancer.
“We’re at the cutting-edge of making a difference in people’s lives,” Dr. Hollingsworth said.
