Molecular Pathogenesis of Pancreatic Cancer

This book was written to summarize the midterm meeting of the concerted action BMH4-CT98-3085 funded by the European Union in the context of the BIOMEDII programme. The objective of this concerted action (CA) is to generate a European network allowing to share expertise, technologies and resources to speed up the process of characterization of potential new disease genes in pancreatic cancer. The meeting in Barcelona in November 1999 was hosted by the group at the IMIM led by F.X. Real, and was scheduled to allow a midterm evaluation of the individual projects. Around 30 scientists participated in this meeting, which took place in a relaxed atmosphere allowing a mutual exchange of data and experiences. This book includes a description of the concerted action, a state of the art article on the molecular biology of pancreatic cancer and brief articles summarizing the scientific presentations given by members of the individual groups. As the meeting provided a forum to present the newest data and technologies, this book gives an overview on some of the most actual devlopments in Europe concerning genetic alterations in pancreatic cancer.