| UCLA Pancreas Tissue Bank |
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David Dawson, M.D, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Pathology and Laboratory and Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA is Director of the UCLA Pancreas Tissue Bank. Since 2005, the UCLA Pancreas Tissue Bank has accrued a repository of high quality archival pancreas tissues and tumors that are made available to researchers for the purpose of facilitating basic and translational research in pancreatic diseases. These tissue resources allow investigators to confirm promising laboratory results in patient tissue samples and are invaluable tools for the discovery and validation of diagnostic, prognostic or predictive clinical biomarkers.
Dr. Dawson also runs a basic and translational research laboratory solely focused on pancreatic cancer. The laboratory’s primary goals are to better understand and treat this lethal disease by:
- Identifying novel genetic and epigenetic alterations responsible for the development and progression of pancreatic cancer
- Understanding the role of specific cell signaling pathways in promoting or inhibiting the development of pancreatic cancer
- Demonstrating how certain subpopulations of cells in a given pancreatic tumor are critical determinants of chemoresistance, metastasis and disease recurrence
- Identifying and validating clinically useful biomarkers towards the ultimate goal of personalized therapy for pancreatic cancer
current research projects
- Global histone modifications as biomarkers in pancreatic cancer
- DNA methylation changes as surrogates or causal factors in pancreatic tumorigenesis
- Canonical Wnt signaling and
pancreatic cancer progression
- Survival-based analysis of global genomic and epigenomic alterations in pancreatic cancer towards the
development of clinical useful prognostic or predictive biomarkers
Laboratory Director:
David Dawson, M.D. Ph.D.
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Assistant Professor, Dept. of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
- Director, UCLA Pancreas Tissue Bank
laboratory fellows and staff:
| Anne Nguyen Kovochich, B.S., SRA2 |
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Current Funding:
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Hirshberg Foundation for Pancreatic Research |
| Principle Investigator: |
Dawson |
| Dates: |
07/01/05 - 06/30/10 |
| Total Amount: |
$100,000 |
| Description: |
UCLA Pancreatic Tissue Bank |
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This grant supports efforts to bank fresh pancreatic tumor tissues from surgical resection specimens and the creation of pancreatic tissue microarrays from archival FFPE material.
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| UCLA Department of Pathology |
Translational Research Grant |
| Principle Investigator: |
Dawson |
| Dates: |
07/01/09 - 06/30/11 |
| Total Amount: |
$8,000 |
| Description: |
Evaluation of prognostic markers in pancreatic endocrine neoplasms: creation and analysis of the UCLA pancreatic endocrine neoplasm tissue microarray |
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Seed grant funding for the creation of a pancreatic endocrine neoplasm tissue microarray and biomarker discovery program using the array.
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| NIH/NCCAM |
P01 AT003960 |
| Principle Investigator: |
Go |
| Dates: |
09/30/2007 - 09/29/2012 |
| Total Amount: |
$5,997,080 |
| Description: |
UCLA Center for Excellence in Pancreatic Diseases |
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The overall goal of the Center is to evaluate the effects of phytonutrients, in particular polyphenolic compounds, on inflammatory and proliferative diseases of the pancreas, including diabetes, pancreatitis, and pancreatic cancer, using metabolomic methodology. I am a co-investigator on this Center grant and serve as the pathologist responsible for analysis of human and mouse pancreas tissues. |
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American Association for Cancer Research and Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, Career Development Award |
| Dates: |
07/01/08 - 06/30/10 |
| Total Amount: |
$100,000 |
| Description: |
Wnt Signaling in Pancreatic Cancer Progenitor Cells |
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This career development award seeks to attract young scientists to the field of pancreatic cancer research. My project investigates the activity of canonical Wnt signaling in pancreatic cancer stem cells.
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| UCLA Department of Pathology |
Research Services Research
Fund Grant
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| Principle Investigator: |
Dawson |
| Dates: |
07/01/09 - 06/30/10 |
| Total Amount: |
$20,000 |
| Description: |
Wnt transcriptional signature as a prognostic biomarker for pancreatic adenocarcinoma
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This grant seeks to identify novel clinical sub-groups of pancreatic cancer based on the analysis of global gene expression signatures of archival pancreatic adenocarcinoma samples with linked survival data.
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| |
University of California Cancer Research Coordinating Committee
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| Principle Investigator: |
Dawson |
| Dates: |
07/01/08 - 06/30/09 |
| Total Amount: |
$50,000 |
| Description: |
Genome-wide assessment of DNA methylation in pancreatic adenocarcinoma
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This grant defines difference in DNA methylation between normal pancreatic stem cells, pancreatic cancer stem cells and bulk pancreatic cancer cell populations.
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