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Each year, more than 1.2 million new patients are diagnosed with cancer every year in the United States.

To help combat this, Stand Up 2 Cancer brings together dream teams of the best and the brightest researchers spanning disciplines, institutions, countries and specialties, to join in a unified fight against cancer with translational research.

By providing these teams with long term funding, groups of scientists from peer institutions get to work collaboratively, rather than competitively, to develop new treatments quickly.

Transforming Pancreatic Cancer to a Treatable Disease

Over the next three years, the newly announced SU2C-Lustgarten Foundation Pancreatic Cancer Convergence dream team hopes to apply advances in immunotherapy (hardwiring the body's immune system to fend off cancer as opposed to more traditional treatment options) to the realm of pancreatic cancer.

Co-leading the effort is Penn Medicine’s own director of Translational Research, Robert Vonderheide, MD, DPhil.

Why Pancreatic Cancer?

As the fourth leading cause of cancer death in the United States, pancreatic cancer remains one of the most deadly. Despite recent advancements, survival rates remain poor, as more than 90 percent of pancreatic cancer patients die within the first year of diagnosis, creating an urgent need for new treatments.

Why Immunotherapy?

Clinical efforts focused specifically on pancreatic cancer have failed to improve the survivability or quality of life for those affected. In short, greater research and better answers must be created or found, through novel approaches like immunotherapy.

Today, those diagnosed with the cancer, their caretakers and loved ones face a grim prognosis. To help alleviate this need in the pancreatic cancer community, Stand Up 2 Cancer is bringing together researchers, scientists, and doctors from institutions across the country to work together.