20 Feb 2026
Two researchers from LMU are involved in a consortium set up by German Cancer Aid (Deutsche Krebshilfe) to develop therapies to treat pancreatic carcinoma.
Despite intensive research, pancreatic cancer remains one of the deadliest types of cancer. Although only around four percent of all new cases of cancer affect the pancreas, this tumor entity is the fourth most common cause of death from cancer in Germany.
As part of the “German Pancreatic Cancer Alliance” funding priority, German Cancer Aid is providing a total of 40 million euros of funding for large-scale projects that are intended to significantly improve the treatment options and the prognosis for patients suffering from pancreatic cancer.
The core of the alliance is formed by three research consortia based at a total of 23 university locations in Germany and three universities in the USA and the Netherlands, respectively. These institutions are working together to better understand pancreatic carcinoma at the molecular level and use this knowledge to develop new, personalized therapy concepts.
Professor Julia Mayerle, Director of Department of Medicine II, and Professor Sebastian Kobold, Director of the Institute of Clinical Pharmacology at LMU University Hospital, are involved in the TUM-run “Decoding and Therapeutic Targeting of the PDAC Ecosystem (DEFEAT-PDAC)” consortium, and are each receiving 800,000 euros to support their respective projects.
Sebastian Kobold | © LMU / Stephan Höck
In Sebastian Kobold’s subproject, the researchers are focusing on the preclinical development of new cell therapies and immunotherapies for pancreatic carcinoma. “Pancreatic cancer is a very aggressive type of cancer for which there are only a few possible treatments,” explains the immunologist. “Immunotherapies in particular have become a much more important part of cancer treatment in recent years, but they do not play a role in treating pancreatic carcinoma.”
What matters in this context is the disease’s high heterogeneity at the molecular and immunological level. This is where the LMU research group wants to make a difference. In the coming years, they want to develop new modular immunotherapeutic concepts that particularly reflect the fact that pancreatic cancer is very diverse. “The unique critical mass of DEFEAT-PDAC will be crucial in modeling, analyzing and understanding the diversity of the biology of pancreatic carcinoma,” says Kobold. “This will enable us to develop custom-designed immunotherapies for the first time.”
Julia Mayerle | © Dominik Gierke
Julia Mayerle together with Professor Roland Rad (TUM) is also investigating new approaches for treating pancreatic cancer in her subproject. “Successful advances in the treatment of pancreatic carcinoma have been achieved recently by using combination therapies,” explains the LMU professor of medicine. Her research group is focused on exploring what role complex lipids play in the development of pancreatic carcinoma – and how the associated metabolic processes can be used specifically to target tumors. Signaling pathways that influence lipid metabolism are often used therapeutically in medicine. Signal transmission across the cell membrane is highly dependent on its composition and fluidity.
“The structure of the cell membrane is particularly relevant for the tumor cell and the immune system,” says Mayerle. The aim of the project is to characterize the lipid composition of cancer cell membranes and to develop synergistic therapeutic approaches for pancreatic carcinoma that fight the tumor with specific active agents that have an influence on the cell cycle and lipid metabolism.