A new project award from the EPSRC entitled ‘New minimally invasive technologies for the treatment of pancreatic cancer’

Prof Harris has been awarded a new project from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. The £2M project 'New minimally invasive technologies for the treatment of pancreatic cancer' will begin in early 2021.

With the successful treatment of pancreatic cancer seeing relatively few improvements compared to the other forms of cancer, we will focus on novel digital manufacturing processes and robotics, conducted in partnership with leading clinicians and industry, to enable new forms of treatment by allowing non-destructive access to the pancreas' intricate sensitive internal anatomy.

Prof Harris said: "Our vision is to challenge the mind-set of pancreatic cancer being a prognosis of limited options and high mortality, and to enable revolutionary future treatments that will save lives and allow patients to live without major side-effects".

"I am pleased that our platform manufacturing research and the preliminary investigations undertaken by the project team have successfully made the case for a substantial research undertaking in this field”.

The investigators at Leeds are; Professor Russell Harris, Professor Pietro Valdastri, Professor Harvey Thompson, Dr Silvia Taccola, Dr James Chandler, Dr Jaemin Lee (Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences); Mr Andrew Smith, Dr Thomas Pike (Faculty of Medicine and Health); Professor Stephen Russell, Dr Giuseppe Tronci (Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures).