Investigator, Asst Prof (M) General and GI Surgery, Mass General Research Institute

Assistant Professor of Surgery Harvard Medical School

acetamides; carcinoma pancreatic ductal; cell transformation neoplastic; cell transformation viral; enteroendocrine cells; fluorescent dyes; genes rel; oncogene proteins v-rel; pancreatic cancer; pancreatic neoplasms; pancreatic tumors; paraffin embedding; penetrance; proviruses; recombinant proteins; reticuloendotheliosis virus; stroma; tissue fixation; transcription factor ap-1

Pancreatic cancer is a devastating disease—only 6% of patients survive beyond five years after diagnosis. One of the hallmarks of pancreatic tumors is an abundance of non-malignant (non-cancerous) cells and extensive fibrosis, collectively referred to as the stroma. These non-cancerous components of the tumor promote the aggressive growth of cancer cells and act as a physical barrier to traditional chemotherapeutics.

The Liss laboratory’s research is focused on identifying epigenetic mechanisms that drive pancreatic cancer and understanding how the components of the tumor stroma contribute to these events.

The Liss laboratory operates the Pancreatic Tumor Bank at Massachusetts General Hospital. This clinically annotated biobank contains both normal tissue and tumors from more than 2,600 patients.