Blocking MYC flips aggressive pancreatic cancer cells — SkimNews
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- NYU Langone Health and Perlmutter Cancer Center scientists examined 443,451 individual cancer cells from 62 pancreatic tumors belonging to 56 patients, publishing the single-cell study in Nature Genetics on October 13, 2026.
- Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma tumors each contained roughly two to 11 genetic clones mixing classical and basal cell states, and six patients provided tumor samples both before and after chemotherapy.
- MYC showed heightened activity in the most aggressive basal cell populations; blocking MYC activity in laboratory experiments shifted those cells back toward the less aggressive classical state and made them more exposed to immune cells.
- TIGIT showed increased activity in certain clones that simultaneously had reduced PD1 activity, a combination the team said may help explain why immunotherapies designed to target PD1 have shown limited effectiveness against pancreatic cancer.
- Aristotelis Tsirigos said clinical trials of drugs inhibiting MYC or TIGIT are already underway for pancreatic ductal carcinoma and other cancers, and called for larger studies on the different states cancer cells adopt.
- Despoina Kalfakakou, the study's lead investigator, described the work as the most granular view to date of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, showing that ongoing genetic reshaping drives tumor evolution over the course of disease.
- Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma has a brutal prognosis — nearly 85 percent of patients die within five years of diagnosis — and earlier bulk studies that sorted cells only into classical or basal categories could not explain how cells shift between the two.
Why it matters: With nearly 85 percent of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma patients dying within five years, and MYC- and TIGIT-inhibitor trials already underway, this puts tumor-specific, clone-level treatment design on the table rather than one bulk "classical" or "basal" label. It also hands drug developers a concrete explanation for why checkpoint immunotherapy has had limited effect in this cancer.
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