A team at the Michigan University has pinpointed the Ataxia Telangiectasia Group D Complementing gene, called ATDC, which is overexpressed in 90 per cent of pancreatic cancers, the 'Cancer Cell' journal reported.

And, what's more is that their study found that this gene also makes pancreatic cancer cells resistant to current therapies like chemotherapy and radiation.

"One of the challenges in pancreatic cancer is that it is biologically aggressive and it does not respond well to chemotherapy or radiation. We found that ATDC not only causes the cancer cells to grow faster and be more aggressive, but it makes cancer cells particularly resistant to chemotherapy.

"This gene promotes the biological aggressiveness of the cancer. By targeting this gene, we may be able to make cancer cells more sensitive to the therapies we already have in hand," the study's lead author Diane Simeone was quoted by the journal as saying.

In their study, the scientists injected into rodents tumour cells expressing ATDC and compared that to a separate group of mice injected with tumour cells in which ATDC was suppressed.