32nd FERO Fellowship – Dr Elisa Espinet

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most aggressive tumours and has the fewest treatment options. Although new drugs targeting KRAS—one of the main genetic alterations in this cancer—are emerging, we still do not know why some patients respond better than others.

The project, led by Dr Elisa Espinet and funded by FERO Cancer with sponsorship from the Bosch Aymerich Foundation, will study how the so-called “tumour stroma”—that is, the non-cancerous cells present in the tumour—responds to KRAS-targeted treatments and how this influences their antitumour activity. To do so, the team will use tumour and metastasis samples from patients, keep them alive in the laboratory, and treat them with KRAS inhibitor drugs to see how the different cells in the tumour respond.

The ultimate goal is to identify how the tumour stroma influences the effectiveness of KRAS-targeted treatments, in order to improve patient stratification and develop more effective treatments for pancreatic cancer.