Searching for unknown signs of pancreatic cancer Very little progress has been made over the last 40 years in terms of diagnosing pancreatic cancer at an early stage, therefore the prognosis for patients is often poor. We spoke to Dr Daniel Globisch about his research into biomarkers associated with pancreatic cancer, which could eventually lead to earlier diagnosis of the disease. The statistics on
pancreatic cancer survival rates present a stark picture, with only about 30 percent of patients surviving the first year after an initial diagnosis. The limitations of current diagnostic techniques, which often detect pancreatic cancer relatively late, is one of the main reasons for this extremely low survival rate, as Dr Daniel Globisch explains. “There are only very rough diagnosis methods, which are based on assessing blood tests, CT scans, MRI scans or ultrasound scans. But the risk factor associated with this is very imprecise,” he says. “Another diagnostic option is a biopsy, which is highly invasive and is typically only performed at a relatively late stage of the disease, when it’s really clear from the symptoms that a patient is suffering from pancreatic cancer. However, when a patient reaches this stage with symptoms so strong that a biopsy is required, treatment options are limited.”
Diagnosing pancreatic cancer This underlines the importance of finding new biomarkers for pancreatic cancer, a topic that
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Figure 1: A procedure using a chemoselective probe immobilized to magnetic beads has been developed to optimize mass spectrometric analysis of metabolites. (Garg et al. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2018, 57, 13805; Conway et al. Chem. Comm. 2019, 55, 9080.)
lies at the heart of Dr Globisch’s research. Very little progress has been made in this area over the last 40 years or so, now Dr Globisch is exploring an approach based on analysis of the microbiome. “The microbiome is heavily
involved in human physiology. Disease development is evident through microbiome dysbiosis,” he explains. The microbiome itself is a topic of great interest to Dr Globisch. “With the microbiome, our bodies are populated by large communities of diverse microorganisms termed microbiota,” he continues. “This leads to the production of many unique molecules that humans cannot produce, which are then absorbed by the body. Some of these molecules have been associated with the development of different kinds of diseases.” The dysbiosis in the microbiome, which can be thought as a sort of imbalance, affects the microbial composition of the gut. A major aim in research is to identify metabolites produced by the microbiome in this context, that could eventually lead to the discovery of biomarkers for pancreatic cancer. “I see a huge potential to identify new biomarkers,” says Dr Globisch. Discovering new biomarkers is a highly complex task, but the metabolite level represents an effective starting point. “It could open up new diagnostic possibilities, with the goal of eventually
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