Prof Noreen Starling

This is The Guardian.

So currently, the majority of patients we see in the UK and worldwide with pancreatic cancer present with advanced pancreas cancer that has already spread where surgery doesn't really have a role.

Maybe we see one in 10 or slightly more patients who present with operable pancreatic cancer.

So for the majority of patients with advanced disease today, and for really the last couple of decades, chemotherapy drug treatment has been the mainstay of our treatment approach.

But these aren't curative treatments.

They help us to help patients live longer and better with pancreatic cancer.

But

This is one of the most challenging cancers to treat.

The average survival for patients with advanced pancreatic cancer is about a year, sometimes more, sometimes less.

It presents often late at an advanced stage.

And even for the patients who have operable disease at a microscopic level, the cancer's already managed to break off, which is why we see so much relapse even after surgery and chemotherapy.

So 90% of patients with pancreatic cancer, so 9 out of 10 patients, have a mutation in KRAS.

And this mutation really is the dominant driver of pancreatic cancer.

This gene that drives the cancer to grow and develop has been considered undruggable.

The Ras protein is tricky because the protein is pretty smooth.

Now you might think, why does that make it challenging to drug?

Well, good drug targets often have these deep pockets that you can design a drug to fit and nestle into that pocket.

And by doing so, switch off the protein and switch off that signal.

But these pockets are pretty shallow and smooth.

Honestly, it was a spine-tingling moment.