Discovering Curiosity: Building Mini-Organs to Fight Pancreatic Cancer with New Faculty Chang-il Hwang

  • by Mona Finucane
On the hunt for methods to aid early detection and better therapeutic treatments, Assistant Professor Chang-il Hwang developed pancreatic cancer organoids, miniature organ models that allow him to study pancreatic cancer from its earliest stages. David Slipher/UC Davis
On the hunt for methods to aid early detection and better therapeutic treatments, Assistant Professor Chang-il Hwang developed pancreatic cancer organoids, miniature organ models that allow him to study pancreatic cancer from its earliest stages. David Slipher/UC Davis

When a healthy cell turns cancerous a cascade of events enables the cancer to spread throughout the body. But its origin lies within a single progenitor cell.

“What goes wrong with that particular cell?” asked Assistant Professor Chang-il Hwang, Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics. “Something happens at the molecular level. One DNA molecule, or one protein molecule changes.”

Click here to read more!