Effects of immunotherapy on the cellular landscape and immune milieu in locally advanced pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.

Immunotherapy is successfully used to treat patients with various cancer
types. In pancreatic cancer however, immunotherapy does not seem to
influence patient survival. To address this, we are conducting a phase-II
clinical trial, in which immunotherapy is complemented with minimally invasive
microwave ablation (MWA) of the pancreatic cancer primary and with
systemic chemotherapy (MIMIPAC-trial, EudraCT 2018-002852-34). Patient
samples from pancreatic cancer primary and blood are collected before and
after immunotherapy to study tumor biology and immunotherapy response at
the single cell resolution using single cell RNA-sequencing. The results of this
translational research project will enable us to find key cellular players -cell
states and cell types that have a critical role in tumor biology and
immunotherapy response- as well as associated transcriptional markers,
molecular pathways, and cell-cell interaction networks.