JON COPLAND: I'm Doctor Jon Copland, a Professor in the Department of Cancer Biology at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida. In this rare Aciner cell pancreatic cancer, we discovered a BRCA2 mutation. And this BRCA2 mutation would indicate that a tumor would be more responsive to platin drugs. And so this was a wonderful surprise for us, to discover the BRCA2 mutation, as well as to be able to show a durable response in this patient's tumor.

And so these preclinical models that we're trying to develop at Mayo Clinic become very important, for rare cancers as well as patients in general, if we can develop models. They're not a sure thing every time. But if we can do that, we can start to begin to individualize medicine for patients.

So Aciner cell pancreatic cancer is a very rare cancer. So when a patient comes to the doctor, there's no standard of care, that the doctor is going to know how to treat this particular cancer. And in the case of metastatic disease, these patients have, on average, about 14 months to live.

And so our discoveries, specifically with the BRCA2 mutation, and the discovery of oxaliplatin, showing a long-term survival benefit in our preclinical avatar, or patient-driving xenograft models, really now potentially provide a new therapeutic option for these patients.