On November 12-15 2025, the American Pancreatic Association (APA) held their 56th annual meeting in San Diego, CA. This gathering brings together almost 500 clinicians and researchers from around the world to share and discuss the latest developments in pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer research. On the eve of the conference, the Friends of the APA Foundation held a reception to celebrate Agi Hirshberg and the 20th anniversary of the Seed Grant Program. The conference opened with the Hirshberg Symposium, proudly hosted by The Hirshberg Foundation, a longtime APA sponsor, and focused on the critical issue of cachexia in pancreatic cancer.
The pancreatic cancer sessions covered a wide range of topics, including early detection and surveillance, diabetes, cachexia, and basic biology. Talks focused on AI in high-risk patient identification, new blood-based tests for early detection, and increased understanding of cellular changes from potentially pre-cancerous cysts to tumors – highlight the research efforts advancing screening in hopes to increase the percentage of patients diagnosed with early stage, resectable disease.
Since 2009, the APA has presented the Hirshberg Award for Best Abstract in Pancreatic Cancer. This year’s winners were Shangyou Zhen (Title: From Perineural Stroma to Drug Escape: CAFs Rewire Phospholipids and Anchor P-gp to Drive Oxaliplatin Resistance in Pancreatic Cancer) and Zhijun Zhou (Title: Metabolic Reprogramming Promotes Muscle Wasting and Immune Evasion in Pancreatic Cancer). These abstracts demonstrate the importance of understanding the elements of pancreatic tumor microenvironments including cell types present other than the tumor cells in translating biology into potential therapeutics and highlight another key facet of the ongoing achievements in pancreatic cancer research.
A testament to the success of the Hirshberg Seed Grant Program, a number of former and current awardees were speakers at the meeting. Christopher Wolfgang (2006) gave the opening talk at the Hirshberg Symposium on the clinical perspective on cachexia. In the “Pancreas Development and Lineage Plasticity” session Stephen Pandol (2005) spoke about how tumor cells influence insulin producing cells in diabetic pancreatic cancer patients and Kathleen DelGiorno (2018) detailed an early event in cancer development called acinar to ductal metaplasia (ADM) and her lab’s work identification of new cell types and work to understand how they contribute to tumor formation.
Our newest awardee, Vineet Kumar Gupta (2025), a contributor to the “Young Investigators Abstract Session” explained how inflammatory signaling that occurs with alcoholic pancreatitis results in immune cells infiltrating the pancreas and progression to pancreatic cancer. Bomi Lee (2023) discussed her work using new single cell techniques to differentiate immune/fibroblast subsets in human pancreatitis. In a session focused on “Training the Next Generation of Pancreatitis Researchers” Jami Saloman (2016) spoke about the challenges and opportunities in mentoring and funding for pancreatitis research. Peter Hegyi (2023) gave two different talks, the first a global perspective on diabetes in pancreatitis from the Hungarian Study Group and the second presentation compared low and high nutrition in the treatment of early pancreatitis. It is an indication of the success of our Seed Grant Program to see past awardees shaping the future of pancreatic cancer research and mentoring the next generation.
Due to federal funding cuts to research across the nation, programs like ours are more competitive and researchers are in greater need. The Hirshberg Seed Grant and Catalyst Grant programs are more essential than ever to help researchers and clinicians accomplish the groundbreaking work to increase the survival of pancreatic cancer patients and improve their quality of life.
