The prognosis for pancreatic cancer is usually poor. Successful surgical therapy is only possible in an early tumor stage in the absence of distant metastases. A leading reason for this poor prognosis is the extremely frequent growth of tumor cells into the surrounding nerves (so-called "neural invasion"). Prof. Dr. Demir developed new techniques to investigate this clinical problem and recently also used new experimental models to study this phenomenon (Wang et al. J Clin Invest 2023). As part of the endowed professorship, he and his team have already been able to identify important molecular signaling pathways that mediate the attraction of tumor cells to the nerves and enable the continuous growth of tumor cells along the nerves. The team is currently investigating the therapeutic potential of blocking these signaling pathways with regard to tumor growth and nerve invasion in pancreatic cancer. The aim is therefore to develop a drug therapy that inhibits tumor-nerve-cell interaction and thus improves the prognosis of pancreatic cancer.