UAB Division of Surgical Oncology Director Vikas Dudeja, M.D., has been awarded a four-year, $1.2 million pancreatic cancer research grant from the Department of Veterans Affairs. 

Dudeja's research focuses on the gut microbiome and its impact on various types of cancers, particularly pancreatic cancer, which is known to be associated with smoking. However, it is not clear why a portion of smokers develop pancreatic cancer.

Dudeja's project aims to study the gut bacteria of smoking patients and determine whether the presence of healthy or unhealthy bacteria affects their risk of developing pancreatic cancer. Identifying patients at a higher risk could lead to earlier detection and better treatment outcomes.

This project is especially important considering that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) determined that there are about 28 million smokers in the United States, and about one in every five deaths in the USA is attributable to smoking.

"This grant is an excellent opportunity for us to find effective treatments for each patient and to promote early screening of pancreatic cancer to those with higher risk," says Dudeja.

UAB will be the central research hub for this study, as well as many other projects related to gut microbiome and their effect on gastrointestinal diseases. Dudeja has received more than $4 million in funding to support his research studying the gut microbiome.

Written by: Julia Kasmirski