# A microfluidic cell culture platform for personalizing pancreatic cancer therapies

> **NIH NIH R21** · MAYO CLINIC ROCHESTER · 2021 · $290,970

## Abstract

Pancreatic cancer is expected to become the second leading cause of cancer death in the United States by
2030. Because this cancer is asymptomatic at the early stage, patients are diagnosed at the advanced stage
and have a 5 year survival rate of less than 5%. The benefit from `one-size-fits-all' approach to treating pan-
creatic cancer has reached a plateau, partly due to high incidence of chemotherapy resistance and
heterogeneity associated with this disease. Novel tools are needed to address these problems and to improve
the survival of patients afflicted by this deadly cancer.
About 40% of newly diagnosed patients have a metastatic form of pancreatic cancer. Typical survival time for
such patients is between 8 and 10 months; therefore, it is extremely important to initiate the most efficacious
therapy as soon as possible. All patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer receive a chemotherapy regimen.
A patient is enrolled into either a FOLFIRINOX or gemcitabine/nab-paclitaxel regimen. At the present time, the
decision of which chemotherapy regimen to use is driven by general consensus guidelines and not by the tu-
mor characteristics of an individual patient. Treatment response is typically evaluated by radiographical
imaging performed every two months, and only 30% of patients respond to the chosen chemotherapy regimen.
Precious time is lost as a result. Such trial-and-error approach to therapy selection for treating an aggressive
cancer is simply unacceptable. Our team proposes to accelerate and personalize therapy selection process by
developing a microfluidic platform for cultivating cancer cells and evaluating drug responsiveness for patients
with metastatic pancreatic cancer. Our long term goal is to establish clinical utility of microfluidic cancer cul-
tures for personalizing chemotherapy. Upon successful completion of the current project, the microfluidic
culture platform will be incorporated into future clinical validation studies.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10155447
- **Project number:** 5R21CA236612-02
- **Recipient organization:** MAYO CLINIC ROCHESTER
- **Principal Investigator:** Alexander Revzin
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $290,970
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2020-05-01 → 2023-10-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10155447

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10155447, A microfluidic cell culture platform for personalizing pancreatic cancer therapies (5R21CA236612-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10155447. Licensed CC0.

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