Nawab Azizi
Nawab Azizi completed his Honours BSc in Biological Science with a minor in Neuroscience at the University of Guelph. He is currently a MSc candidate working under the supervision of Dr. Christopher Pin in the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology at Western University. He studies factors that cause pancreatitis that may ultimately lead to pancreatic cancer. Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is now the third leading cause of cancer-related death in North America with a 5-year survival rate of ~8%. This is relatively unchanged in the last 30 years indicating little progress has been made in identifying efficient diagnostic or therapeutic targets. Key early events in the progression of PDAC include constitutive activation of KRAS and acinar-to-duct cell metaplasia (ADM). Recently, my laboratory identified Activating transcription factor 3 (ATF3) as an important mediator of ADM in response to pancreatic injury. ATF3 is a member of the CREB family of transcription factors, which regulates the cellular response to stress. Atf3-/- acinar cells show limited ADM in response to injury as well as reduced expression of ADM markers when placed into culture conditions that promote ADM. The goal of my thesis will be to investigate whether ATF3 is required for KRAS-initiated ADM.
