Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Day 2021 at Donald Cant Watts Corke with Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI)

On Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Day 2021, DCWC were joined virtually by Dr. Tracy Putockzi, Laboratory Head, Personalised Oncology division at Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research (WEHI), to share her team’s research, using cutting-edge organoids technology, to uncover new and effective precision treatments for pancreatic cancer.

DCWC is proud of our continued commitment to helping fund breakthrough research, supporting the crucial work undertaken by WEHI – Australia’s oldest and longest-serving medical research institute. The historic association between DCWC and WEHI is one that involved our specialist services for the institute’s initial development in 1981 and several subsequent projects since.

World Pancreatic Cancer Day brings people around the world together to highlight the need for greater awareness, funding and research for pancreatic cancer. Sadly, survival rates for pancreatic cancer are amongst the lowest of all cancers. Research is the only hope of improved quality of life and improved survival for people living with pancreatic cancer.

Towards a better future of people living with pancreatic cancer

WEHI’s Dr Tracy Putoczki and her team are leveraging cutting-edge organoids based technology to better understand pancreatic cancer biology. This is helping to uncover new ways to combat this disease.

Organoids are miniature replicas of cancer patients’ tumours that are grown in the laboratory. Because organoids mimic a patient’s own cancer, they can be used to:

• accelerate our understanding of how pancreatic cancer grows and spreads and what its vulnerabilities are
• allow us to test which drugs – both new and existing – may be able to kill a patient’s cancer
• enables patients to be categorised to receive the most effective treatment for their own specific tumour – enabling a more personalised approach to therapy for each individual pancreatic cancer patient
• uncover better ways to diagnose patients
• identify better ways to prevent resistance to treatments; and
• discover new and effective precision treatments.

Most importantly, this research gives hope of improved quality of life and improved survival for people living with pancreatic cancer.

The historic association between DCWC and WEHI is one that has been incredibly productive. In 2020, DCWC renewed its pledge to commit $100,000 to WEHI over the next three years, supporting WEHI’s pancreatic cancer research.

READ MORE ABOUT DCWC'S COMMITMENT →

Read more about WEHI and their important research.