Unmet Need
Pancreatic cancer is a highly lethal malignancy and it is the fourth leading cause of cancer-related death in the United States (see Uptodate). Surgical resection is currently the only potential treatment to cure pancreatic cancer that could result in significant improvement in survival, but over 80% of patients with pancreatic cancer are diagnosed when the cancer has grown or spread and surgery is no longer an option (see Brunner et al. 2019). Furthermore, prognosis is poor, even after a complete resection (see Uptodate). Therefore, there is a strong need for development of a next generation cancer therapy that is able to target difficult to treat cancers, such as pancreatic cancer.
Technology Overview
Researchers at Johns Hopkins have developed a cancer therapy that leverages CRISPR technologies to specifically target pancreatic cancer cells. Researchers used patient derived pancreatic cancer cells to find novel structural variants or base substitutions that lead to unique target sites or protospacer adjacent motifs (PAMS). Using those identifying mutations specific to the target cell, researchers then designed single guide RNAs that would work in the CRISPR-Cas9 system to induce multiple DNA strand breaks, ultimately killing the cancer cell. Initial work was performed using pancreatic cancer cells in vitro, but it is hypothesized that the same principle could theoretically be applied to all cancers.
Stage of Development: Experimental data is available.
Publication
Related Technology: JHU Ref. C18199
