Our group is interested in a specific population of cells within the tumor that share characteristic of stem cells and have the ability to form a tumor, so called, tumor initiating cells (TICs) or cancer stem cells (CSCs). We have access to material from patients with glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), from which these TICs/CSCs are isolated. Goal of this project is to further characterize these TICs/CSCs and use them to develop novel targeted therapies of GBM and PDAC. To this end, orthotopic xenograft mouse models will serve as platform for testing therapeutic effects on tumor- formation, -growth and -invasion/metastasis.