Lim receives early-career development award

Kian-Huat Lim, MD, PhD, a Washington University researcher and medical oncologist at Siteman Cancer Center, has received a 2016 Career Development Award from the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network and the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).

Each year, the organizations jointly recognize early-career pancreatic cancer researchers. Lim will receive a two-year, $200,000 grant as part of the award.

Lim’s research is based on his lab’s findings that pancreatic cancer cells resist chemotherapy and become aggressive by frequently activating its own immune defense mechanism. Affected patients are much more prone to relapse after surgery. By deactivating this mechanism, Lim’s team is able to render pancreatic cancer cells more sensitive to chemotherapy. The researchers are focused on developing new therapeutic regimens based on this finding, to improve the outcome of pancreatic cancer patients.