Evan S. Glazer, MD, PhD, FACS, assistant professor in the Division of Surgical Oncology and the Department of Surgery in the College of Medicine at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC), has been awarded $100,000 from the Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract (SSAT) to study a protein's role in pancreatic cancer progression. The award comes through the organization's Career Development Award, which establishes young faculty members as basic or clinical scientific investigators in digestive diseases.

The SSAT is a global community of nearly 2,700 gastrointestinal surgeons advancing research, innovation, and advocacy to benefit interdisciplinary patient care Its mission is to lead in advancing the science, and practice of gastrointestinal surgery.Pancreatic cancer is one of deadliest and most difficult cancers to treat. It is the third leading cause of cancer related deaths. In a few years, it expected to be the second-leading cause of cancer related deaths, preceded only by lung cancer.

Dr. Glazer's laboratory investigates how pancreatic cancer changes the immune cells in cancer and the role of a specific protein, transforming growth factor beta (TGF-B), in making pancreatic cancer worse.

According to Dr. Glazer, the treatment for pancreatic cancer has not dramatically changed in the past 30 years.