Since 2005, our Seed Grant Program has fostered an environment for research to bloom. As we mark 20 years since our first cohort of grantees, it is more exciting than ever to look back and see all that is being accomplished.
Marina Pasca di Magliano, PhD is one of the world’s leading pancreatic cancer researchers. As a 2015 Seed Grant Awardee, her project deepened the understanding of mutant P53 in pancreatic cancer progression and metastasis. The resulting research, published in 2018 by Dr. Pasca di Magliano and her lab, found that p53 mutation is required for the formation and maintenance of KRAS-induced pancreatic cancer precursor lesions. Her lab photo shows a large and diverse group of researchers that she fostered to help publish this insight.
For the past 15 years, Dr. Pasca di Magliano has run a lab at the Rogel Cancer Center at the University of Michigan. Now, thanks to a $50 million gift, she will co-lead and help create the Rogel and Blondy Center for Pancreatic Cancer. The center will be co-led by Dr. Pasca di Magliano, Costas Lyssiotis, Ph.D., and Timothy Frankel, M.D., a 2014 Seed Grant Awardee. This new Center embodies a key tenet that the Hirshberg Foundation has long heralded: collaboration is key.
Dr. Pasca di Magliano told Michigan Medicine that one key to their success is that “many of us have labs next to each other…It allows for an exchange of ideas, joint mentoring of trainees, and a lot of collaboration.” She shares that having clinicians involved in research is another key that “helps us keep in perspective that everything we do is about patients, about preventing, detecting, and treating pancreatic cancer.”
When asked about the future of pancreatic cancer research, Dr. Pasca di Magliano said, “research is moving toward a more personalized oncology approach… We have to respond to each patient’s disease, not just initially but throughout treatment.” Another area of potential is “to get an immune response to the tumor. I strongly believe that’s the only way we will get long-term control over the disease.”
In 2023, it was an honor to have Dr. Pasca di Magliano join our Scientific Advisory Board to help shape the future of our Seed Grant Program and foster collaboration across and among universities. We celebrate and admire the work that Dr. Pasca di Magliano is leading at the Rogel and Blondy Center for Pancreatic Cancer.
Thanks to your support, we’ve been planting seeds of hope through our Seed Grant Program for 20 years. It’s a delight to watch research grow from the lab to the clinic and bloom into clinical trials and new treatment options.
Help us continue to sow seeds of hope for a cancer-free future, donate today.