A big roadblock to successful cancer treatment is the resistance of some tumor cells to therapeutic drugs — especially in the case of pancreatic cancer. Jia Fan and Bo Ning, assistant professors at ASU’s Biodesign Institute, have revealed the cause of this resistance to chemotherapy drugs. They have been mentored in their research by Tony Hu, a Fulton Schools associate professor of biomedical engineering. He has also helped Fan and Ning in their collaborations with the MD Anderson Cancer Center. Hu says the discovery of a biomarker to predict the body’s responses to chemotherapy is a big step for clinical prognosis of pancreatic cancer.