Pancreatic Cancer Workshop

Visitor of the Week: Kyle McAndrews

Meet Kyle McAndrews of the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC)! Kyle is a 4th year doctoral student in the Cancer Research Graduate Program and a member of Tony Hollingsworth’s lab. He attended our 2022 workshop on Pancreatic Cancer.  

Tell us about your research.
My project is focused on the pancreatic ductal glands, which are a progenitor niche of the main pancreatic duct. We are interested in determining their contribution to pancreatic cancer initiation and progression.

How did you decide to focus on this area/project?
My undergraduate degree was in Wildlife Ecology and Biology and I actually did not plan to become a lab rat, but I was hired as a lab technician in Dr. Sarah Thayer’s laboratory at UNMC, which is where my project began and I became excited about pancreatic cancer research, especially how and where in the pancreas it is initiated.

What and/or who is the inspiration behind your scientific journey?
I first became interested in science when I was a child through my father’s (and later my own) aquarium hobby. I found myself wanting to learn more and more about the natural world. I also had a lot of great science teachers and professors throughout my education that were truly excited about science and encouraged me to continue learning.

What impact do you hope to make through your work?
I hope that my work can help us understand some of the earliest events in the initiating processes of pancreatic cancer. Any knowledge gained surrounding the earliest stages of disease will have important implications for detecting the disease and intervening sooner.

What do you love most about being a researcher?
Being on the cutting edge of what we know is extremely exciting, the seemingly infinite complexity of Biology is mind boggling and being a part of advancing human knowledge is both fulfilling and important.

What drew you to apply to this course?
Some of my lab mates had attended previously and had an amazing experience.

Kyle sectioning frozen tissue sections of mouse pancreas.

What is your key takeaway from the Course; and how do you plan to apply it to your work?
That all of the models which we use to study disease have limitations and that we always need to keep this in mind when making conclusions about data. There are seemingly infinite cell to cell interactions happening at all stages of pancreatic cancer, many of which we are just beginning to scratch the surface. This course has helped broaden my perspective and allowed me to look at my own project from angles that I had never previously considered.

What feedback or advice would you share with someone considering to participate in this course?
Ask questions, make friends and connections to everyone here! There is so much knowledge and experience and having such an intimate setting with leaders in the field is truly priceless.

What’s the most memorable thing that happened during the Course?
Honestly the fact that everything was so casual was a relief. I definitely packed too many polos and pants. Seeing experts in the field from around the country just be who they are and not in their normal professional setting was awesome.

Is this your first in-person course/workshop since the pandemic? If so, any thoughts you’d like to share?
This is my second in-person course/workshop since the pandemic. It was nice to interact with people from outside of my normal routine and setting, which has at times been hard or impossible in the last couple of years.

What do you like most about your time at CSHL?
Playing card games with other attendees after our long days and going for a run down to Lloyd Harbor Road when I could fit it in before dinner was great. As a native Nebraskan I appreciate any second I can spend near salt-water.

Kyle received a scholarship from the Helmsley Charitable Trust to cover a portion of his course tuition. On behalf of Kyle, thank you to the Helmsley Charitable Trust for supporting and enabling our young scientists to attend a CSHL course where they expand their skills, knowledge, and network.

Thank you to Kyle for being this week's featured visitor. To meet other featured scientists - and discover the wide range of science that takes part in a CSHL meeting or course - go here.

Images provided by Kyle McAndrews

Visitor of the Week: Sejin Chung

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Meet Sejin “Sej” Chung of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies! The postdoctoral fellow in Dannielle Engle’s lab is taking part in the virtual Workshop in Pancreatic Cancer. This is her first course at CSHL, and she will soon be among the 130+ researchers who have trained at this workshop since it the first class in 2011.

Tell us about your research.
My research focuses on finding early detection markers to improve current pancreatic cancer survival rates. I am also interested in understanding how bacteria can influence the immune system and affect pancreatic disease progression.

How did you decide to focus on this area/project?
I studied pancreatic cancer therapies during my graduate school, and wanted to continue to tackle this aggressive cancer. Part of the big issue is that pancreatic cancer is difficult to detect until it is late stage. Figuring out a way to detect the disease is thus a critical unmet need and I wanted to work on a project that would directly address this. I was also interested in stepping out of my comfort zone, and wanted to dive into the microbiome and immune system to better understand this disease.

What and/or who is the inspiration behind your scientific journey?
My mom has been an inspiration behind my scientific journey. We moved to the US when I was young, and she raised my sister and me while she simultaneously learned English and obtained an education. Through her example, I have always been motivated to be compassionate to others and to give back to my community. She is a constant motivation in my scientific aspirations.

What impact do you hope to make through your work?
I really just want to be able to help move the field forward in any way. Whether that be through new models or new mechanisms, I want to be able to increase this current momentum that we are seeing in the pancreatic field. There is a lot to be done, and working together will allow us to help the patients.

What do you love most about being a researcher?
I love that there is always more to learn and that there are many ways to find a solution. Research can be difficult but the satisfaction of learning new things and being able to contribute to the community makes it all worth it!

What drew you to apply to this workshop?
I wanted to learn more about pancreatic cancer in various aspects. It is easy to fall into and stay in your own research field, but it is important to learn about the other research that is going on within it. I knew leading experts in the pancreatic cancer field would be lecturing during the workshop, and I wanted to have a chance to meet them and learn about their work.

What is your key takeaway from the Workshop; and how do you plan to apply it to your work?
There is so much awesome science going on! This workshop opened my eyes to new avenues of collaboration and new ways to answer my research questions. I hope to keep making collaborations with the people I met in the workshop. I also feel inspired to include in my upcoming experiments the lessons I learned here. 

What feedback or advice would you share with someone considering to participate in this workshop?
I’m not sure if I was the only one who felt this way, but I was nervous to meet the instructors in the course because I had read so much about their work. However after meeting them, I realized they are very down to earth and here to help the next generation of scientists move forward. I would like to advise the next participants to feel free to ask any questions because everyone is there to help you!

What’s the most memorable thing that happened during the Workshop?
I really enjoyed the student presentations because of the feedback that we got. It was great to be able to present some of my ideas and get constructive feedback and suggestions. I also loved seeing everyone’s pets and backyards on Zoom.

Thank you to Sej for being this week's featured visitor. To meet other featured researchers - and discover the wide range of science that takes part in a CSHL meeting or course - go here.

Image provided by Sej Chung.

Visitor of the Week: Kranthi Kumar Chougoni

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Meet Kranthi Kumar Chougoni of the Virginia Commonwealth University. Kranthi is a PhD student in Dr. Steven R. Grossman’s lab, in the Clinical and Transitional Research with Concentration in Cancer and Molecular Medicine Program. He is currently taking part in our biennially-held Workshop on Pancreatic Cancer which also happens to be his first course at CSHL. 

What are your research interests? What are you working on?
Complex heterogeneity and disease progression of pancreatic cancer is what intrigues me. Currently, I am studying the role of oncoprotein, C-terminal Binding protein (CtBP2) and p38 MAP Kinases in progression of pancreatic cancer.

How did you decide to make this the focus of your research?
Pancreatic cancer is one of the most lethal cancers with very limited treatment options available because much of the disease’s progression is not known. Dr. Grossman’s lab focuses on pancreatic and colorectal cancer research, and when I got a chance to work in his lab, it was like a “wow” moment for me and I grabbed the opportunity with no second thought.

How did your scientific journey begin?
My undergraduate professors Dr. David Banji and Dr. Otilia Banji, who are extremely talented and hardworking, are a huge inspiration for me. Their pharmacology lab always drew my attention and I was fascinated by the research work carried in their lab and that’s when I decided to become a researcher and make valuable contributions to the science and society. Then, during my Master’s in pharmacology and toxicology at Wright State University, working with Dr. Norma C. Adragna further strengthened my interest in research.

Was there something specific about the Workshop on Pancreatic Cancer that drew you to apply?
I am a basic scientist and I always wanted to know things from a clinical perspective for a better understanding of the disease. This was a perfect opportunity; I had a chance to listen to the lectures from clinicians who actually treat pancreatic cancer patients.

What and/or how will you apply what you’ve learned from the workshop to your work?
It’s about halfway through the workshop and it feels like I learned a ton already, starting from symptoms reported by pancreatic cancer patients to the complex mechanistic progression of cancer. One specific thing I will take back to the lab is co-culturing pancreatic cells with fibroblasts to recapitulate tumor microenvironment. 

What is your key takeaway from the workshop?
One of the key takeaways for me is “to think critically about what you want to do before you actually do and pick the right experiment model” as said by Dr. Kenneth P. Olive. Also to be a “fearless scientist” as said by Dr. Ben Stanger.

If someone curious in attending this workshop asked you for feedback or advice on it, what would you tell him/her?
I would totally recommend it after all the wonderful exposure I have had. My only advice would be to come prepared. There are experts all around. All you have to do is come prepared and approach them.

What do you like most about your time at CSHL?
The Banbury campus is so green, peaceful and beautiful. I really enjoyed walking on the beach and talking to other participants. We also played games during the evening breaks and that was so much fun.

Thank you to Kranthi for being this week's featured visitor. To meet other featured scientists - and discover the wide range of science that takes part in a CSHL meeting or course - go here.

A Word From: Dafna Bar-Sagi, Howard Crawford, Tony Hollingsworth & David Tuveson

L to R: Howard Crawford, David Tuveson, Dafna Bar-Sagi, Tony Hollingsworth

L to R: Howard Crawford, David Tuveson, Dafna Bar-Sagi, Tony Hollingsworth

Last week, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory welcomed 26 trainees, 31 lecturers, and 2 new additional instructors to the biennial Workshop on Pancreatic Cancer. The course, just four iterations young, has substantially grown over the last six years, reflecting the growth in the field. Our conversation with the four instructors Dafna Bar-Sagi, Howard Crawford, Tony Hollingsworth, and David Tuveson illustrates how pancreas cancer research continues to evolve and progress. We also discuss developments that may be game changers, as well as advice for those interested in the field or who wish to attend a future iteration of the course. 

To start, here is a brief history of the course as told by Dafna and David – the two instructors who have been with the course since its premiere. 

David: The pancreas cancer course started in 2011. There hadn’t been an instructional course in pancreatic cancer before that time and Jim Watson felt strongly that that was one of the reasons why the field was going so slowly. He convinced Dafna Bar-Sagi to organize such a course and, around this time, I was engaged with Jim Watson and Bruce Stillman on a number of issues involving pancreatic cancer so they asked me to help Dafna.

The first course was held that summer with 19 selected trainees who were students, postdocs, junior faculty, as well as some senior faculty. We assembled 19 lecturers to have an intensive workshop at the Banbury Center to go over aspects of pancreatic cancer medicine and science.

Dafna: We almost ran through the entire research community when we first organized the course. Fortunately, for a lot of reasons – funding, publicity for the disease – there are more investigators studying it so we now have a fantastic resource of people looking at the disease from many different perspectives. Now we have to actually leave out great people because there are so many to choose from.

We opened the discussion with how both the course and the field have changed since 2011: 

Dafna: The thinking now is less about the tumor cell itself and more about the environment, and putting more weight towards what we call the tumor microenvironment. There is a recognition that it’s not just the genetics of the tumor but how the tumor cells themselves talk to cells in the organ that are doing a lot of important things. Talks that address either partly or completely the role of the tumor microenvironment made up a lot of the talks we heard and what I sense to be exciting to our participants.

David: This year’s course, compared to just six years ago, has more to tell people because in the last six years we’ve learned a lot about pancreatic cancer - not about the medicine but about the science underneath it. We now know genetic events in pancreatic cancer, and we’ve developed methods to study the disease that are much deeper and much more facile than they were even six years ago.

Howard: Scientifically, we’re definitely up-to-date. That’s the nice thing about having four organizers and making these decisions together. It’s not very difficult to incorporate new science.

Tony: In general, there is more discussion now of opportunities compared to the large number of talks about infrastructure before. In the early days, people were still trying to build programs of research – it was an emerging field – which have come together now. As a result, there’s a lot more collaboration going on and more institutionalized programs are making progress.

Something else that’s different in the course are the student presentations that have been incorporated into the curriculum. They’re very effective and very good for engaging the young people with the faculty to discuss a lot of ideas that are going on in their labs right now.

David: The students today are much more informed because they come to the course knowing a lot about pancreatic cancer whereas, in the past, they came to the course to learn what was pancreatic cancer. And so the quality of the students as well as the knowledge of the disease has made it so now we get twice as many applicants as we have spots.

Our conversation then transitioned to the lecturers, topics presented, and exciting new developments:

Howard: Having our lecturers as part of the audience gives the impression of "no holds barred." As a result, the trainees understand early on that there will be questions and challenges, and that it's alright. They also get more comfortable inside the room to be able to bring up any topic that's in their mind.

David: There were a number of lectures this week that were extremely exciting. One was by Dieter Saur who is a professor in Munich, Germany. He’s developed the next version of a mouse model of pancreatic cancer where you can turn genes on and off at different times. In fact, he has gone to the level of making the first known pig model of pancreatic cancer, which looks intriguing and promising and a bit scary.

There was also a lecture by Matthew Vander Heiden who is a well-known biochemist and metabolism researcher. Matthew has identified new pathways that are required by pancreatic cancer to survive. I think his work is groundbreaking and will pave the way for many additional investigators.

And finally, one of our course instructors, Dafna Bar-Sagi has identified two methods by which pancreatic cancer cells evade therapy and survive in a hostile environment. One is they eat their surroundings to live – that’s where they get their food, by eating what’s around them. And the second is they have a stress pathway they activate to prevent responding to therapies. Both of her observations can lead to brand new therapeutic approaches.

Tony: There is a coalescence of ideas of early detection that are coming together. I think the basic studies in the field are really making progress. There’s been development of new complementary model systems – organoids and different animal models – to go along with the existing studies. Also, there is more focus on human studies now than there was for a long time.

Howard: I’d like to re-emphasize that. The idea that there are these new models – organoids and new mouse models and such – and essentially everyone knows they’re available. The students don’t just hear about them but get help developing them in their own laboratory. I think that’s huge. The camaraderie of these workshops is one of the biggest selling points. It gives the students things they can take back to the lab, and the connections to help implement them.

Tony: I think it’s notable that a lot of students from previous workshops are now in faculty positions and are participating in this workshop as lecturers.

Howard: At least two alumni are presenting this year – Mara Sherman and Jenn Bailey.

Dafna: It’s extremely rewarding. Mara Sherman attended as a trainee in 2013 while she was a postdoc in a lab that didn’t work on pancreatic cancer, and she is now an independent investigator in Oregon. We invited her to be a lecturer this year because obviously she’s very driven to do pancreatic cancer research. But Mara will also say herself that attending this workshop was a very reinforcing experience.

For those interested in applying for the Workshop on Pancreatic Cancer, here is additional insight from two of the instructors: 

Dafna: This is the only existing opportunity in the field of its kind. It is an immersion course in everything that has to do with the disease. The beauty of this course is that in 5-6 days you are exposed to everything you need to know if you are either going into the field or want to understand the evolving trends. A lot of our lecturers talk about unpublished data. The course is a combination of didactic components so people can actually understand the field, but then it gets into things that are new and exciting that very few actually know about. These are things that aren’t talked about at meetings. It’s a comprehensive way of getting to know everything you need to know about pancreas cancer.

David: For people interested in the course, I would recommend they get in line now. The Workshop on Pancreatic Cancer is the rock concert you don’t want to miss.

Lastly, here are parting messages from Dafna and David for young scientists: 

Dafna: It’s really important to follow your brain and your heart in terms of what it is you want to do. Don’t get sidetracked by the flashiness of a methodology or by the fact that a certain phenomenon has been published in a high-profile paper. Use your creativity and your curiosity to drive what you’re doing. From my experience, that has been the most important ingredient for success and what is ultimately most rewarding. So really think about the interesting questions, don’t shy away from the more difficult questions, rise up to the challenge and do whatever you can to meet it.

David: If someone’s really interested in pancreatic cancer, they should find people they can start working with and talking with now. They should contact the participants – the course instructors and students – to seek from them any knowledge about the course that could help them on their quest to learn more about pancreatic cancer. And pretty much anyone who’s a lecturer in this course is more than happy to help someone get started on their path.

Thank you to Dafna, Howard, Tony, and David for taking the time to chat with us. For more conversations with our other meeting organizers and course instructors, go here. Also, to gain a trainee's perspective on this workshop, read our Q&A with Lee Shaashua.

Lastly, the Workshop on Pancreatic Cancer will return in the Summer of 2019. For updates, visit our course webpage or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Visitor of the Week: Lee Shaashua

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Meet Lee Shaashua of the Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel). Lee is a member of Ruth Scherz-Shouval's lab and is on campus for the biennial Workshop on Pancreatic Cancer. The postdoc fellow is new to the field of pancreatic cancer and attended the workshop for a comprehensive overview of the clinical and biological aspects of pancreatic cancer, as well as to have one-on-one interactions with senior investigators. Continue reading for more on Lee and her experience at the workshop.

What are your researching interests? What are you working on?
I am interested in the role of the tumor microenvironment in promoting pancreatic cancer aggressiveness, looking at different stromal subpopulations.

What is your key takeaway from the Course?
The importance of collaborative work and supportive environment in promoting research.

How many CSHL courses and/or meetings have you attended?
In addition to the Workshop on Pancreatic Cancer, I also attended the Biology of Cancer: Microenvironment, Metastasis & Therapeutics meeting in 2015. I look forward to attending future meetings and courses at CSHL. 

Was there something specific about the Workshop on Pancreatic Cancer that drew you to attend? 
As I am new to the field, I felt that this course would broaden my knowledge of both clinical and academic aspects of pancreatic cancer.

If someone curious in attending this workshop asked you for feedback or advice on it, what would you tell him/her?
I think this course is the best opportunity for students to get to know the field of pancreatic cancer as well as the leading faculty members.

What do you like most about your time at CSHL?
I really enjoy the casual and friendly atmosphere in the course. The people are great!

Thank you to Lee for being this week's featured visitor. To meet other featured scientists - and discover the wide range of science that takes part in a CSHL meeting or course – go here.