What a difference a decade makes. For those with diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, it's the contrast between a grim prognosis and one filled with possibilities and hope. Just 10 years ago, even the basic biology of the disease was a mystery; today, scientists are making groundbreaking advancements across all areas, from early detection to treatments.

"The excitement and optimism is palpable because we are in an unprecedented time in medical research," says Dr. Elizabeth Jaffee, professor of oncology and deputy director of the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, who sits on the Scientific Advisory Board of our VB Gives Back partner, Let's Win Pancreatic Cancer. "Just recently, my team at Hopkins opened two clinical trials to treat high-risk individuals with a vaccine to prevent cancer from developing. This was a dream we had years ago that is now reality."

Here, we chat with Jaffee, who specializes in immunotherapy, about the changes in the landscape and why this cause is so personal to her.

Tell us about your connection to pancreatic cancer...

My family saw the devastation caused by pancreatic cancer back in 1986 when my uncle was diagnosed and died just three months later. There were no drugs to treat this horrible cancer at that time. I was a medical intern. I didn’t know much about cancer, but I knew pancreatic cancer was a death sentence.

What inspired you to enter the field?

At Johns Hopkins we had a well-known surgeon, Dr. John Cameron, who was known for treating pancreatic cancer patients with the Whipple procedure. He was treating as many patients as he could, but the cancer usually recurred within a few years. He came to me and said it was time to work on new treatments for the disease. This was 1994. I had just started my own lab and decided to develop a treatment that would educate the patient’s own immune system to recognize and kill the cancer. I got my first clinical trial started in 1997 and over the next two years treated 12 patients, three of whom lived for over 25 years without recurrence.

What were some of the early challenges?

There was very little financial support from the government, and we did not have any foundations to encourage research. Drug companies were afraid to test new drugs in pancreatic cancer because they feared it would not be a win for them. They needed to first show it could work for other cancers that were more responsive.

What's changed since?

The past decade has seen exponential growth in technologies that are allowing pancreatic cancer researchers to understand each patient’s cancer, how it developed and how it may progress. Most importantly, we have gone from no treatments to multiple treatments that are giving patients longer life and great hope for even better treatments.

This is just the beginning. These advances are leading to new tests that can help to identify patients who have the earliest stage of pancreatic cancer when it is still curable. We also have tests that can identify many who are at high risk for pancreatic cancer.

I often tell my younger colleagues that when I first started testing new drugs, I was obliged to tell patients that the treatment was unlikely to help them but that they were helping to make it better for future patients. Now I can honestly say to a new patient interested in our clinical trial, “This new treatment is already showing promise.”

From now to the end of December, we will donate a portion of proceeds from every single veronicabeard.com order to Let’s Win Pancreatic Cancer, a pancreatic cancer community changing the way patients and caregivers navigate this disease. Learn more here.