The WashU Medicine Clinical Research Training Center is delighted to celebrate K12 Oncology alum Liang-I Kang, MD, PhD for her K08 award from the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Over the next five years, this assistant professor of anatomic and molecular pathology will receive over $1 million in funding for her project, “The role and spatiotemporal dynamics of TREM2+ macrophages in liver metastases of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.”
This Mentored Clinical Scientist Research Career Development Award will provide the support for Dr. Kang to develop as a physician-scientist and build expertise in advanced tumor immunology and transcriptomics. Ultimately, her goal is to lead an independently funded basic science and translational research program to study the tumor microenvironment (TME) in liver metastases to be able to develop targeted therapies.
Project Narrative: Pancreatic cancer is a highly lethal disease in which most patients are diagnosed with or eventually develop distant metastases; however, there are currently no effective therapies for metastatic pancreatic cancer. This project aims to identify candidate treatment targets for metastatic pancreatic cancer by studying the cells that interact with and support tumor growth in liver metastasis. The findings of this study could contribute to the development of new treatments to improve outcomes in metastatic pancreatic cancer patients, but also could benefit patients with metastatic cancer of other types as well.