PG12-01 Collins Lay summary
Principal Investigator: Dr Anne Collins, Senior Research Associate at YCR
Cancer Research Unit, University of York
Lay title:
Targeting the cells that initiate and maintain tumours with new therapies
What are you proposing?
The purpose of this proposal is to target the cells that cause prostate cancer and that are resistant to standard
therapies.
Why are you proposing it?
For more than six decades therapies that block androgen activity have been used in the management of
prostate cancer. Unfortunately, this treatment is not a cure and most patients relapse within 18 months. The
nature of this resistance to this and other therapies is the focus of this proposal.
How are you proposing to do it?
Our laboratory has been instrumental in identifying the cells that cause prostate cancer. As part of this
programme of work we have identified key proteins that are required for the survival of cancer cells. We now
wish to test drugs that have been made against these proteins. There is, unfortunately, a high failure rate of
new targeted drugs in clinical trials, such that there is increasing doubt as to the suitability of traditional ‘cell
line’ models of preclinical studies.
The originality of our approach is that the selection criteria was based on patient material (and not cell lines)
and we now wish to test these drugs on a series of ’near-patient’ primary tissue grafts. We have inserted
prostate tumours (taken from men with aggressive prostate cancer) into mice. The mice carrying the tumour
can then be treated with drugs to test their effectiveness. Our preliminary experiments suggest that targeting a
protein called stat3 can inhibit the growth of cancer cells.
We wish to take this work forward and the aim of this proposal is to determine the effectiveness of these new
drugs (as single agent(s) and in combination with current ‘standard of care’ therapies for prostate cancer) in
prostate cancer tissue grafts.
How long will it take?
This proposal is for 36 months
What is the budget?
£187,426
What are the expected outcomes?
Prostate Cancer UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1005541) and in Scotland (SC039332). A company limited by guarantee registered number 2653887 (England and Wales).
This programme of work us expected to provide new information on the cells that cause prostate cancer and
are resistant to therapy.
How could it make a difference to the lives of men affected by prostate
cancer?
Most drugs tested in prostate cancer clinical trials were selected on the basis of their activity on cell lines that
have been cultured for decades and bear little resemblance to the original tumour. We anticipate that our
approach will increase the success rate of clinical trials for prostate cancer. Importantly, we expect to gain
new information on the cells that are resistant following therapy and how best to target them.
Please write a summary of the project in one sentence only.
The purpose of this proposal is to target the cells that cause prostate cancer and that are resistant to standard
therapies.