Funded Research 2006

PCRF Clinical Research Fellowship 'Prostate Cancer Proliferative Cell Markers'.
Hide Yamamoto & Prof John Masters, Prostate Cancer Research Centre

Prostate cancer can be treated with surgery, radiotherapy, hormone therapy or chemotherapy. The aim of these treatments is to kill all the cancer cells. But not all patients are cured and about 10,000 men die from prostate cancer in the UK each year.

There has been little improvement in the survival of men with advanced prostate cancer for over 50 years. New and more effective treatments are needed.

In this study, we will select and grow the dividing cells in the cancer and study their characteristics. By selectively killing the dividing cancer cells, it may be possible to devise more efficient and effective treatment.

We will take prostate cancer biopsies, separate the cells and grow them in the laboratory. Only the proliferative cells will be able to form colonies - groups of cells derived from a single cell.

When prostate cancers are grown in the laboratory, paradoxically the normal cells grow much better than the cancer cells. We therefore need to confirm whether the dividing cells we are growing are cancer cells. Because the DNA of the cancer cells differs from that of the normal cells, we will use genetic tests (loss of heterozygosity analysis) to confirm that we are growing cancer cells.

We will then determine which genes are switched on in the growing cancer cells using gene chips. The gene chips will indicate which proteins are present on the surface of the growing cancer cells. If we can identify cell surface markers on proliferatice cells derived from prostate cancers it could provide new targets for the treatment of the disease.

 

Project commenced
October 2006

Length of project
1 year

Amount Supported
£41,000

 

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