Research | Rogel and Blondy Center for Pancreatic Cancer

The large, multi-disciplinary team of researchers at the Rogel and Blondy Center for Pancreatic Cancer are renowned for best-in-class laboratory models of disease, cutting-edge discovery science, and developing new treatments.

Our scientists have made a wealth of new, high-impact discoveries in the last five years, which are widely recognized as paradigm shifting. This is evidence by hundreds of new scientific research papers and nearly two dozen prestigious National Cancer Institute grants totaling more than $7 million. Our researchers hold the most NCI funding for pancreatic cancer in the region. 

Our breadth of research includes:

• Tumor microenvironment
• Tumor immunology
• Metabolism
• Epigenetics
• Drug discovery
• Clinical trials
• Radiosensitization
• Immunotherapy
• Early detection

Rogel and Blondy researchers are advancing early detection, innovating to create new treatments and cultivating a game-changing landscape of new answers. Recent discoveries include:

• Creating a robust and detailed portrait of the network of interactions that suppress the body's immune response in and around pancreatic tumors
• Understanding how metabolism in the pancreatic tumor microenvironment affects the growth and development of tumors
• Revealing a new pathway to understand the progression of pancreatic cancer using healthy pancreases donated through Gift of Life Michigan

The Rogel and Blondy Center is a leader in more than 20 local, national and global research consortia, including Precision Promise, a network of 20 U.S. sites offering and evaluating multiple innovative options for metastatic pancreatic cancer.

The Rogel and Blondy Center has the largest biobank in Michigan, with 10,000 pancreatic cancer tissue samples – and growing. Tissue is made available across the U-M campus and nationally to enable scientific research.