Experts have shared that there are very few patients who survive pancreatic cancer, a fact recently reinstated by the death of actor Patrick Swayze, who was diagnosed with last stage pancreatic cancer last year.

Although there is little understanding of this form of cancer, it is known that pancreatic cancer is aggressive and survival rates are very poor. More often than not, doctors end up misdiagnosing it because of the physical symptoms which include stomach pain, backache, weight loss and constipation, which could very well point to some less serious condition.

Now, however, after a lot of research, researchers have managed to find something to bank upon. The Australian Pancreatic Cancer Genome Initiative has recently been awarded a grant of $27.5 Million, its largest ever, by the National Health and Medical Research Council. The funds have been provided to an Australian team of researchers led jointly by Professor Sean Grimmond, from the Institute of Molecular Bioscience in Brisbane, and Garvan Institute of Medical Research's Professor Andrew Biankin.

Together, they are now looking to sequence as many as 400 pancreatic cancer genomes.

Under the new research, two genomes would be sequenced for each patient.

"By understanding what mechanisms are going wrong at a molecular level in the cancer, we can design drugs that target the specific mechanism the tumor is dependent on for growth", says Prof. Biankin.