Can CRISPR Save Pancreatic Cancer Patients?
Advancements in gene editing may offer a new form of treatment for pancreatic cancer.
“When I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at 46 years old, my goal was just to make it to 50. Even with that short-term goal, I knew the odds were not in my favor,” Monsignor Joseph A. Tracy stated in Fox Chase Cancer Center.
Tracy, a pancreatic cancer survivor, was unfortunately correct when he said that the odds weren’t in his favor. The average 5-year survival rate for pancreatic cancer patients is only 7.2 percent, making it one of the deadliest forms of cancer. However, Tracy survived, making him an exception to the rule for having achieved his goal.
There are many factors that make pancreatic cancer so deadly. Because symptoms don’t generally emerge until the later stages, it’s often not diagnosed until it’s metastasized, or spread to other parts of the body. This typically makes treatment more complicated and less effective.
For the few patients where the cancer is caught before it metastasizes or advances locally (spread to nearby tissues), surgery is an effective treatment option. These patients will have a 20-30 percent 5-year survival rate. Rates for patients who undergo radiation or chemotherapy, on the other hand, aren’t as good. Fortunately, thanks to the wonders of gene editing, new methods of treatment may be coming along soon.
CRISPR/Cas9, the gene editing tool that won the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 2020, has been used extensively in pancreatic cancer research. It can be used to knock out (render non-functional) genes related to cancer growth, including genes specifically related to pancreatic cancer. This allows scientists to study how different genes affect the progression of the disease. It has also been used to show how pancreatic tumors obtain nutrients, stop tumor cell migration and, perhaps most importantly, determine new protein targets for cancer drugs. However, what’s especially exciting is the potential for using CRISPR more directly to treat instances of pancreatic cancer.
CRISPR Therapeutics, which focuses on using gene editing technology to develop new treatments for a variety of diseases, is currently running a clinical trial using CRISPR-modified T-cells (a type of immune response cell) to target different types of cancers, including many forms of pancreatic cancer. If successful, there will be a new form of CRISPR-based treatment available for pancreatic cancer patients, possibly saving thousands of lives.
To get even more direct, it could be possible to use CRISPR to directly modify the human genome to suppress tumor causing genes or cut off mechanisms of tumor growth. However, the development and approval process of such treatments is a long way off.
In fact, most CRISPR-based cancer treatments, including ones for pancreatic cancer, are a long way off. The study run by CRISPR Therapeutics is expected to conclude in 2030, and even if it’s successful, the treatment won’t be available for several years after that. It takes time to get a new drug or treatment method approved with the FDA and international regulatory agencies. Also, any study that directly modifies the human genome will take even longer, as the FDA is (perhaps understandably) leery about the ethics of such treatment. (For more information on that debate, see my article on gene editing and mental health).
CRISPR could be used to treat any number of cancers, although it’s particularly useful in otherwise difficult to treat cancers, such as pancreatic or kidney cancer. However, we have to consider at what point we’re allowing an excess of caution to prevent innovation, especially innovation that could save lives.
Best,
Grace for the Don’t Count Us Out Yet Team