Pancreatic Disorders & Therapy
Open Access

The role and therapeutic potential EF2-kinase in pancreatic cancer

International Conference on Pancreatic Disorders and Treatment

October 17-19, 2016 Chicago, USA

Bulent Ozpolat

The University of Texas, USA

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: Pancreat Disord Ther

Abstract :

Pancreatic cancer represents an unmet therapeutic challenge due to extremely poor mortality rates (1-5% 5 year survival rates). We recently discovered that eukaryotic elongation factor-2 kinase (EF2-Kinase) is highly up regulated in pancreatic cancer cell lines including those with KRAS mutations and promotes cell proliferation, survival, invasion/migration, drug resistance and tumorigenesis. We found that in-vivo therapeutic targeting of EF2K gene by si-RNA nano-therapeutics significantly inhibits tumor growth in pancreatic tumor xenografts in mice. Our data suggest that EF2K represent a novel therapeutic target in pancreatic cancer great promise as a therapeutic intervention for gene specific silencing therapy of oncogenes in cancer.

Biography :

Email: bozpolat@mdanderson.org