Lustgarten Foundation’s Innovation and Collaboration Program provides seed funding for investigators who have highly innovative research with significant potential to accelerate the mission to transform pancreatic cancer into a curable disease.
Kashatus’ study will explore how understudied cellular structures, called lipid droplets, contribute to different steps in the metastatic process. Lipid droplets help cells respond to stress by storing energy and sequestering toxic molecules. Dr. Kashatus’s team hypothesizes that they play a vital role in the metastatic spread as they change in response to stress and can help tumor cells adapt to different environments. If successful, this research will potentially identify novel therapeutic opportunities to target metastasis.
“This funding will allow us to examine the issue of pancreatic cancer metastasis to better understand how cancer cells adapt to challenges, providing the opportunity to develop therapies to target the metastatic process and improve patient outcomes.” [more]