Core B: Human Pancreas

ABSTRACT: Stanford Human Bio-bank for Pancreas Cancer Research (Core B) The Stanford Human Bio-Bank for Pancreas Cancer Research (Core B) will support human tissue and cell studies proposed in the Projects of this Program Project Grant whose overall goal is to systematically clarify the genetic drivers of PDAC pathogenesis and define the immune system's role in pancreatic cancer propagation. While many studies will be performed in defined genetically engineered mouse models of PDAC, an important theme of these studies is to test and demonstrate the relevance of our discoveries to human PDAC. With this objective, this Core will 1) Systematically collect and bank human pancreatic cancer tissues and blood, and to establish a registry of clinical and demographic information of these patients, 2) Systematically collect and bank human pancreatic tissue and blood from patients with chronic pancreatitis and to establish a registry of clinical and demographic information of these patients, 3) Provide expertise and knowledge of human tissue analysis by histology, immunohistochemistry, FACS, CyTOF, and single-cell RNASeq, and 4) Collaborate effectively with Core C to use CODEX for studies on human tissues for all Projects. This Core will support Project 1 by providing human pancreatic cancer tissue, pre-cancerous pancreatic lesions, and chronic pancreatitis (CP) samples for evaluation of their genetic diversity in the KRAS oncogene, and tumor suppressor genes. This Core will support Project 2, by providing pancreata from patients with PDAC, or inflammatory states like CP, to assess immune and fibroblast subtypes, IL-22/ IL-22RA1 expression patterns and in the context of PDAC, their association with cancer subtypes and `stemness' phenotypes. This Core will support Project 3, by validating earlier observations in mouse PDAC models by analyzing immune cells and immunomodulatory factors and their association with genetic subtypes of human PDAC. This Core will also work closely with Core C to enable appropriate human tissue processing for the innovative CO-Detection by indEXing (CODEX)-based multi-parameter imaging. Thus, this research core will be highly integrated and supportive of the overall objectives of this Program Project Grant.