Professor Gerard Evan joined Julia Hartley-Brewer on talkRADIO to speak about pancreatic cancer.
Professor Gerard Evan of the Pancreatic Cancer Research Dream Team joined Julia Hartley-Brewer on talkRADIO, Stand Up To Cancer partners, to talk pancreatic cancer, early warning signs, the randomness of cancer-causing mutations, and the future of cancer research.
"We think that there are commonalities across most, maybe all, but probably most cancers; certainly cancers that occur in adults - pediatric cancers tend to be rather different, and young adult cancers tend to be rather different. We do think that there are general principles. The problem is that cancers arise by random errors in the DNA of cells, and they are random, and there's no order or thought to them. So that means that if you look at everybody's cancer, there are differences. But just because there are differences between each person's cancer doesn't mean to say they're all different. I mean we're all humans, but we all look different. So the question is, what is it you want to focus on? Do you want to focus on the similarities and commonalities, or on the many many differences? In terms of cancer, there are two approaches: one is to focus on the individual differences in each patient, this is called personalised or precision therapy, and the other is to say 'Let's ignore all the differences' and see if we can understand the commonalities. It's that that our Dream Team is focused on; trying to understand the common basis of all pancreatic cancers."