Accuracy in Targeting of Pancreatic and Liver Cancer Organoids
Jeremy Kratz, MD, is a physician-scientist who has interests in hepatobiliary and pancreatic cancer.
The goal of his research is to improve the modeling of patient-derived cancer organoids and ultimately understand how molecular heterogeneity predicts therapeutic sensitivity with the development of new treatment strategies for these cancer types.
Research Overview
The Kratz lab studies hepatobiliary and pancreatic cancer because chemotherapy alone remains a mainstay for these cancer types. The goal is to develop ex vivo tools for the prediction of targeted therapeutic response and to overcome secondary mechanisms of resistance. Patient-derived cancer organoids (PCOs) provide a platform to understand the mechanism of therapeutic selection.
These technologies interface with broad advances in next-generation sequencing, broad expression profiling, high-throughput screening, advanced microscopy, and animal models. By focusing efforts on patient-derived tissues, the laboratory's goal is to characterize pathways with the greatest opportunity to translate to effective therapies in early-phase clinical trials.