Project Summary Dr. Martin Whittle is a senior scientist working in the laboratory of Dr. Sunil Hingorani at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Dr. Whittle’s training has provided him a strong foundation in the fields of molecular biology, cancer cell signaling, and tumor modeling in mice. This Research Specialist award will support Dr. Whittle’s effort on research projects central to the overall Hingorani Laboratory research program including the following three key projects: the complex pancreas cancer microenvironment and its contributions to disease pathogenesis and drug resistance; the immune reaction in PDA and development of effective immunotherapies; and the molecular underpinnings of the metastatic switch in pancreas cancer. Aside from performing vital experiments for each of these projects, Dr. Whittle further supports the Hingorani lab by training new technicians and postdoctoral fellows in fundamental and advanced laboratory techniques that are critical to the Hingorani research program, including genetic engineering, mouse model development and characterization, animal husbandry, surgical procedures and necropsies, primary tissue culture, histochemistry and immunohistology, genotyping PCR, qRT-PCR, western blotting, FACS, fluorescence microscopy, gene array, molecular cloning, ELISA, mass spectrometry and others.