The aim of this work package is therefore to:
- characterize morphological inter- and intratumour heterogeneity, both regarding the cancer cell population and the nonneoplastic tumour stroma
- correlate morphological heterogeneity with functional diversity in terms of metabolic activity, chemoresistance, and detection on PET-CT (in collaboration with work packages “Metabolomics” and “Surgery”, NorPACT-3 study)
- correlate morphological heterogeneity with diversity at the RNA-level in different microanatomic tumour compartments with the help of spatial transcriptomics (in collaboration with work package “Molecular characterization of tumour tissue and liquid biopsies”)
- Investigate morphological heterogeneity of both the tumour and the non-neoplastic pancreatic parenchyma in patients with germline mutations that increase the risk for developing pancreatic cancer (in collaboration with work package “Medical genetics”, PREPAIRD study)
- investigate the impact of morphological heterogeneity on the effect of neoadjuvant chemotherapy and the morphological evaluation of treatment-induced tumour regression.
Collaborators
- Knut Jørgen Labori (work package “Surgery”), OUH/UiO
- Elin Grindedal (work package “Medical Genetics”), OUH
- Elin H. Kure (work package “Molecular characterization of tumour tissue and liquid biopsies”), OUH
- Ivar Gladhaug (work package “Metabolomics”), UiO
- Anders Molven (work package “Animal models”), UiB
- Sönke Detlefsen, Odense University Hospital & University of Southern Denmark
- Daniela Lenggenhager, University Hospital Zürich
- Nuria Malats, Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO)
- The International Study Group of Pancreatic Pathologists (ISGPP)