Developing new treatments by targeting cancer’s adaptation processes

Grant information

Researchers: Dr Prabhakar Rajan and Professor Tyson Sharp
Institution: Queen Mary, University of London
Grant award: £275,357
Reference: RIA22-ST2-001

What you need to know

• Dr Rajan, Dr Sharp and their team are looking for new treatments for a type of prostate cancer that is particularly dangerous and currently hard to treat.
• To do this, they are targeting a process that cancer cells use to adapt and survive in difficult environments.
• They will study this process in detail, and test any potential treatments on 3D models of cancer cells grown in the lab.

What will the researchers do?

Your body’s cells need oxygen to survive and grow. If the cells can’t get enough oxygen, then they are likely to die.

The same is true of prostate cancer cells – up to a point. When they first start growing, tumours need more and more oxygen to supply their cells. However, eventually, they may need more oxygen than the body can provide.

At this point, the cancer cells that are lacking oxygen can either die, or adapt.

In this project, the researchers aim to find a new way to treat prostate cancer by targeting a process called alternative splicing. They will focus on a kind of prostate cancer that is particularly hard to treat – not only adapted to a low-oxygen environment, but also missing a protein called PTEN, which helps to suppress tumour growth.

During this project, the research team will look at which genes can undergo alternative splicing, and how the process is controlled, to see if there are any weak points in the process that could be exploited.

They will also test a range of potential new treatments that can disrupt alternative splicing on 3D models of cancer cells, and study how they work in these hard-to-treat cancers. If the project is successful, the researchers plan to start a small pilot study to test the effectiveness and side effects of the drugs in men with prostate cancer.

How will this benefit men?

It is currently very difficult to treat prostate cancer that has both adapted to a low-oxygen environment and lost the PTEN protein. By looking for new treatments for this kind of cancer, the researchers could make a big difference to men, extending their lives or improving their chances of surviving the disease.